Face of Mankind

[Bells]

Think of EVE, not get it free. now make it weird.

Face of Mankind.

I've not yet tried this game, but i'll tell you right now i LOVE the video tutorials, so i'll just be up front with it, right here.

Introduction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ-6HZsyZmc)
Character Creation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkuLkS1bgb4&feature=related)
First Steps (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v75yY3essc4&feature=related)
Chat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKWzI0I8M58&feature=related)
Character Stats (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq20fyaOD-E&feature=related)
Interface (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3G_r-tmOew&feature=related)
Factions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVO4asMeoCY&feature=related)
Objectives (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Pz2gNI8jk&feature=related)
How to Earn Money (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3FxYCkeb0&feature=related)
Equipment and Weapons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y81uOh30uQA&feature=related)
Death & cloning (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuySy65tfB4&feature=related)
Booster items (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIQxA4nvRV8&feature=related)
The Law (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Z-CGMohSw&feature=related)
Groups (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s40XRavFlrw&feature=related)
Departments (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBDLhAH1M7k&feature=related)
Apartments (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQ1yMt7rYQ&feature=related)
Security Barriers and Hacking (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zTybzBELKQ&feature=related)
Game Support (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfAX-ihZSzQ&feature=related)

So here is the scoop:

This is INTENSIVELY RP heavy.

You can be of 3 main groups... Good Guys, Merchants or Bad Guys essenstially.

There are total of 8 Factions in the game, you can be a Cop, a Military man, a CLergy man, A Miner, a "Business suit" and others.

The game is entirely driven by the community. Objectives and goals are faction based and given by the Faction leadership to you.

There is heavy emphazis on Diplomacy and negotiation.

if you are a cop you can actually Arrest and Search people for illegal drugs and items]

If you go to jail you can escape or work your debt to society and be released via quests IN THE JAIL.

You can actually go to someone, pull out a gun, kill them, loot them and flee. Anywhere.

Your faction can take control of certain areas

You can actually work your way up to Faction leader.

You can mine, craft, produce and sell items with a Player-Based economy based on the place you are and the Faction that controls it.

There is permanent death... but it's not easy to get to it. You really need to run out of cash and clones.

If you die, you loose everything that is on you at the time.

It's one of those games that makes you work for your Fun, but i dare say... it looks like a ton of Fun. I think of myself as a Dirty cop, i scan people for Illegal good, them shake them down for cash if they don't want to go to jail for it. Then they put a Bounty on the market for my head and a mercenary picks it up and chases me down, i kill him in self defense (He needs to shoot me first) and life goes on.

That... sounds fun.

[PyrosNine]

I remember playing it when it was in BETA, and they had no money!

It was somewhat big and boring, as there weren't too many people playing it, and the whole roleplaying oversystem doesn't work when there are just a few people wandering about.

Of course, that didn't stop someone from just watching me wandering around, pulling out a gun, and killing me. And then later, when someone tried to kill me for no reason, I popped a cap in her FACE and she actually ran off.

[Tev]

Think of EVE, not get it free. now make it weird.
You left out "and you don't get a cool spaceship."

[Bells]

Yeah, but you get a generic avatar with a REALLY WEIRD walking animation

Also, worth nothing that this is the "new version" the game failed at first and was then relaunched in 2009 as the current version. With some improvements.

[Jagos]

Intriguing...

No, NO. I just put down DFO and TF2...

Darn you Bells! What are you doing to me?

[Pip Boy]

Clearly what we need to do is have a few people people play it for long enough to find out if its any good, then report back.

Then, if its worth playing, the entirety of NPF joins as law enforcement and politicians and we set up a fascist dictatorship. We will crush any who stand in our way. None will oppose us. I would like to personally volunteer to play the role of Roger. Now we just need a Jack and some biguns.

Alternately, we start a crime ring.

[Jagos]

Too easy.

The dictatorship can actually work much better than a crime lord. Think about all the illegal drugs we can score!

[Bells]

There is two ways this can go down...

Cops and Robbers. Some of us as Police, Some of us as Mercenaries, one hunts the other. TILL THE LAST CLOOOOOOONE!

"The Shield". Dirty cops with hearts of gold, we taze because we love.

[Melfice]

Orrr... you set up a PMC and hire yourself out to fight battles for others.
As well as a diplomacy firm that could start shit for the PMC to solve.

[Bells]

See? the possibilities are endless ... for causing trouble to others.

We can put up a Para-Military Group, a CSI-esque cop team that Locks people away or a Mercenary group that causes and solves mayhem! Awesome!

[Geminex]

As well as a diplomacy firm that could start shit for the PMC to solve.
Dibs on running this one. There will be so many wars. So many.

[Pip Boy]

Look, I don't care how we do it, we just need to come up with a plan that leads to us profiting off of our corrupt manipulation of others. We can start fake wars and hire ourselves to fight in them or whatever, just so long as we're getting us some fight on.

ANOTHER IDEA: An assassin's guild? We have a few mole characters try to infiltrate the higher reaches of different factions, then, whenever somebody pays us for a target, our mole helps an agent infiltrate that person's security and kill him all sneaky hidey like. The agent gets the infamy for the kill, so the mole's cover remains secure.

[Bells]

You mow... right now you guys ARE looking at just two of the 8 possible factions. Police and Mercenaries.

as much as i love the idea of actually being able to arrest players in a MMO... There ain't much in the way that would prevent us from, maybe making a Terrorist cell of miners that kill people, with a mercenary to point us to the bounties... i mean, who is going to suspect a bunch of miners, right?

[Jagos]

Guys, it takes numbers. I mean seriously...

We want to control 5 of the 8 factions. So we'll need a number of things. Recruiters on the low levels to keep the proles content, diplomatic immunity from police factions and a LOT of bribery. Seriously, think big people. BIG.

[Bells]

BY THE WAY =)

the game is a 1gb Download. relatively tame for today's standard and it's not high end by any means... so i suggest y'all to give it a spin.

[Pip Boy]

Is it possible to have private sub-groups of a faction that would be more like a guild is for most games?

EDIT: I have begun my download. Have not yet set up an account. I'll talk to some people once I get it up and running to see if we can arrange some kind of in-game havoc and nonsense.

EDIT AGAIN: If we're going to make a cooperative effort, it seems the best thing to do would be to split our group into three separate, but interactive groups. Military, Economy, and Diplomacy. Diplomacy focuses on our relations with other groups and factions, Economy does what it can to bring in the big monies, and Military does any muscle work necessary to go after the goals of the other two. Can't get any more specific yet since I haven't experience the game firsthand. More soon.

[Jagos]

... DARN YOU PEOPLE! *goes to start download...*

[Bells]

Those who like the social gaming should take a look at the Economic aspects, i Like short fun bursts of gameplay so i'm totally going to be a police officer.

This day marks the birth of the Nuklear Cell. Good or Bad? let history decide

[Pip Boy]

I don't like Nuklear Cell. Could we maybe get a vote on a small list of names?

We may be a totalitarian dictatorship, but democracy still has its place.

So far our general composition seems to be...

Military
Pip
Bells

Diplomacy
Geminex (assuming he was serious about that post)

Economics

C'mon guys, its going to take more than 3 people to cause massive socioeconomic upheaval.

EDIT: My client installer seems to be having some issues with finalization. The bar is at 99.99 percent and stuck at...

Fixed it. Starting it up now. I'll probably be hopping back onto here every 10 minutes or so to update with comments on the game. Stay tuned, folks!

UPDATE 1: I have decided to go with a military man. In order to make myself easy for others to identify, I have chosen the name Pippin Boyd.

UPDATE 2: Man, they really beat you over the head with the premium subscription stuff. Makes sense on a free MMO, but still very annoying.

UPDATE 3: HOLY SHIT THESE PEOPLE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. Upon joining the game, I was addressed by a player named JohnSt in my faction. His job in the faction is to train new recruits. He seems to take this very seriously. He literally ran around for an hour showing me different places and factions and rules and showed me the ropes, as he does with every new player because it is his job. Just a suggestion to anyone looking to play together: Its one character per person, very strict, so the only way to play together is if we're all on the same faction. I joined the FDC, (the military one) and according to my trainer, they're the only ones that get so personally involved in training their new players.

UDATE 4: Shot my a commanding officer (nonlethally) as punishment for breaking the FDC's "No Dancing" rule. This is grounds for a coup.

[Aldurin]

I will assist in the taking over of the world.

Also, is this a "free but have to pay for certain bullshit" type of free?

[Pip Boy]

There are both normal and premium accounts. So far, as far as I can tell, premium accounts get apartments, more convenient travel, the ability to reach higher ranks in their factions, and the ability to see allies on the minimap.

EDIT: Having played this game for a bit, the "RP Element" seems to be mostly whiney bitches complaining about who shot who and expecting every motherfucker in a mile radius to help them because they're higher in rank.

[Marc v4.0]

Come to their aid, and kill them again

[Bells]

yeah, i mean... that's the angle we're working on here , right?

[Pip Boy]

I don't really know about this guys. Form what I've seen, the people in this game take RP to the extent that its just annoying and infuriating. The only two factions I interacted with at all are supposed to be allies, but they keep getting into bitchfights because of some stupid dramatic crap and now everybody is retarded about everything. Like, you can get open fired upon by members of your most closely allied faction for walking alone, unarmed, and escorted by their own guards through certain areas. The people at the FDC wanted me to sit, literally in a classroom, through a 2 hour lecture and then take a test.

If we play this game, we will all need to be in the same faction so that our numbers will be enough to make us not have to deal with the asshats all the time, and we'll need to go into a faction that is a bit more loose and built for killing things. FDC and LED are both full of whiney annoying bitches.

[Jagos]

So they're the first ones to die

[Marc v4.0]

Everyone wants to play the one guy that hates their alliances

[Pip Boy]

Well, the long story short is that any kind of complex inter-faction alliance will be impossible. The game pretty much has it set in stone that your faction are your allies, so the best way for all of us to team up would be to join the same faction. This would also give us some sway in that faction because leadership is based on democratic elections. I think if the lot of us were to join any one faction, learn to play the game pretty well, and then convince our allies in that faction to go on the war path, we may be able to get some stuff done.

As for the LED and FDC being annoying whiney bitches, Im being told now that this is mostly the particular group of people who were on when I was playing. Because of the great deal of support they have for new players, I still think FDC would be the best place for all of us to start, and then possibly switch somewhere else at a later time.

On the other hand, though, it might not be worth getting involved at all. The FDC has 8 ranks, from a new player R0 to the faction leader R7, and I'm pretty sure you can't get past like R4 without a premium account. We wont be able to get any political power unless some poor chump is paying, and the game has enough issues that I wouldn't bother wasting money on it.

EDIT: Just to clarify how seriously they take the RP element, if a new recruit addresses anyone R2 or higher without saying "Sir", they are penalized.

EDIT AGAIN: Since the process for gaining rank is based on being promoted by your superiors and then eventually being elected to R7, a violent coup will be impossible regardless of our numbers. If a metric fuckton of us were to start playing, we may be able to influence a vote, but since we can't actually run for election ourselves (since a minimum rank is required and none of us are premium members) it would be kind of pointless.

EDIT ANOTHER TIME: On the plus side, a lot of people seem friendly enough, new players are greeted by "bootcamp instructors" (in the FDC anyway) and the FDC has a teamspeak server set up.

[Aldurin]

I'd shoot any of those fuckers demanding formality out of me. What about the Brotherhood or Mercanaries? They might be a better fit for us.

Also if I bought a premium account and was the only one to do so would that mean I'm the viable option to make our personal leader of chosen faction?

[Geminex]

If by 'personal leader' you mean 'political puppet', then, yes, yes it does.

[Aldurin]

Also if we do go into the FDC I'll probably call superior officers that aren't NPF "fuckface" until they stop demanding I call them "sir", or when they have me shot.

[Bells]

Maybe we could look at the weakest faction and try to break that...?

[Pip Boy]

Your superior officers can fine/demote you at will. Pulling a gun and shooting someone (lethally) is a very rare means of solving problems. I think if we're going to get anything done, we need to do like bells is suggesting, and pick the single weakest faction in the game and bolster it.

[Sifright]

I'm downloading the client, I'm ready to assist in what ever way needed.

[Pip Boy]

Am I the only one playing this now? Aside from Sifright? This would be a lot more bearable with other people who aren't assholes.

[Aldurin]

I'll look into it. But I'll probably pick a random faction until I get used to the controls and/or learn how much random murder I can get away with.

[Sifright]

Well i've downloaded the client now and installed it yet to make an account because i'm not sure what every one is doing and playing on my own sounds like it would be a huge pain in the ass.

[Bells]

You guys have some seriously fast connections ¬¬...

I'm downloading it, ain't there yet

Also, Pip, so far what you see as the smallest faction online?

[Sifright]

Well I don't know about fast my connection is considered pretty sub-standard in the uk. in the rest of europe it's would be looked down on even more.

So How many of us are going to be getting involved at the moment including me it looks like there will be four of us.

[Jagos]

I'll join later, just need to work on my homework.

[Pip Boy]

I've had very little interaction with the game on a large scale since nearly every bit of my time playing has been aboard the Yukon (the faction area for FDC, only accessible to FDC members) or in New York City, which is controlled by the LED. Going to try and work my way up the FDC ladder to see if I can change a few things or grab a few lulz.

EDIT: EVERYTHING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN GOOD ABOUT THIS GAME IS ANNULLED BY ITS ANNOYING USERBASE. Also its really boring.

[Sifright]

so i'm guessing i wasted a download eh?

[Bells]

Holy crap man, now i think i owe you a beer

[Aldurin]

My laziness pays off, I didn't even sign up yet.

[Pip Boy]

The thing that kills it is that its run by a player community. Unfortunately, all the different factions are run by asshats. I was fortunate enough to join the least asshated of them, and still it was so stupid and backwards working with some of those people that it wasn't even worth playing. The game is so faction-based that if you're not going to cooperate with your faction and try to advance in rank, there isn't a point.

I even got temp banned from their teamspeak server for using the word nazi, since one of the TS mods was German and "saying nazi is racist".

So look out guys, there's a new N-word on the block. Its like Germany found out about Affirmative Action and decided they want in on it.

EDIT: This game was so bad, it makes me want for us all to join some different slightly less shitty free MMO just to cleanse my memories of it. Maple story may be grindy and kind of gay, but at least it was fun when played in groups.

[Bells]

Hey man, from time to time i hop in MMO's sites look around the most obscure ones that seem good and check them out. It's been a while since i actually saw something that i felt like a HAD to play, and there is quite a few games out there that i'm just waiting to get on their bets, like World of Tanks (you drive tanks!) and Taikodom (free EVE!)

I remember RaiRo and that was a Blast from time to time, if we can get the forum excited about an MMO, i would love that. Specially if it's silly, obscure and Mayhem-prone

[Aldurin]

We could have shitfully awesome parties in DDO, I mean literally making a balanced NPF group would remove the risk of me discovering new people to idiot-list (I swear, some of these people just need to go back to begging for gold on Runescape).

[Jagos]

What have I told you all about...

OOhhh... DDO... I seriously need to start that but NO... I have classes. You all don't want to see me fail do you?

(Choices, choices...)

[Aldurin]

What have I told you all about...

OOhhh... DDO... I seriously need to start that but NO... I have classes. You all don't want to see me fail do you?

(Choices, choices...)

You forgot your third choice, lose sleep.

[Pip Boy]

Alternately, if the members of NPF are looking for some awesome online RP action, we could try hosting an online D&D campaign...? Not post by post. Post by post is awful. Arranged meeting times once a week. That way its easy for those of us with classes to have the time set aside for it, as opposed to normal MMOs which demand every second of every day.

[Jagos]

There's a few games we could do and I'm interested. But I would seriously need someone to help me learn DnDO.

I'm used to playing DFO and TF2 so...

[Sifright]

Hey Pip boy I like that idea. Actual P&P sessions could be quite fun there are plenty of tools that could be used to enable it, Game table or Open RPG being some of the better ones as i recall Open RPG includes a Grid table which is a nice bonus