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Review of Face of Mankind (Retail)
Lolzorz11
Member Posts: 3
I’ve been playing along with my brother for about a couple weeks, this is coming from someone who is largely successful at the game and I’ve played End Game WoW (top 10% raiding and 30% in PvP Arenas), CoH, SWG, EQ, EQ2, LOVE, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Sims Online, LOTRO, Guild Wars, Matrix Online, Tabula Rasa, and Darkfall. I’m also a junior video game artist by trade.
FoM is essentially a dated free to play MMOFPS currently run by a programmer named Duplex with a player driven economy and player driven combat. It has no AI to speak of and enemy players can be partially looted of their inventory.
Graphics – 2.5/5
Items/Environments are below Star Wars Galaxies release in quality (which was released years ago), shaders are ugly, and character models are carbon copies of each other. Female characters have broken animations, and sound is taken from other games clearly. There is only 3 types of armor in game, and unless you pay 10 dollars for extra clothing, only 4 types of clothing. Everyone is wearing the same armor usually with it being color coded by faction.
Gameplay – 2/5
The gameplay consists largely of two things, crafting objects used for fighting and fighting. Crafting is essentially automated; you buy a schematic put Mining/Production into queues and, since you cannot leave a world while doing it, all you do is chat or AFK while surfing the web. Its only marginally more complicated than World of Warcraft. The learning curve for anything is very steep and require you to watch tutorials to grasp anything in the game.
Fighting in FoM is essentially the FPS equivelent to Counter-strike knife fighting, all weapons have the same DPS, the only difference is that they have scopes and/or slow you to varying degrees, Zanathid pistols are popular because you can take drugs and move at 100% speed and its as deadly as a Assault Rifle/Sniper/SMG. It feels like a slow and less intuitive version of Quake style combat. As a result, factions who start wars only can win by numbers, even the best players make no difference as the game doesn't allow it. The game lacks any end-game content, theres no AI, and interactions are motivated by players only, which often turns into Roleplay or harassment. The only fun I’ve had was trolling players and sniping them while AFK or hunting police.
In addition, a number of Game Masters regularly use aimbots on alts and harass players who are at war with their faction, you generally cannot be banned for any reason in the game, particularly when a faction member of mine reported a hacker and was banned from the game by the hacker.
There are no classes, skills, achievements or any other game padding bullshit, but the game lacks so much, I wish they were in implemented. Players join factions at Rank 0 and are promoted by the Faction Leaders (Rank 7s), they are essentially appointed by the Game Masters and they rarely promote players past Rank 3 as they can start votes to oust the leader - so sucking up is an important feature. In addition, they have the ability to fine you 10% of your money at will, make you kill on sight and determine how much money you earn for completing objectives for the organization.
Wars between factions are the most fun aspect of the game (often 30-70 players), however, they are rare because they result in galactic wars (by game design), any faction at war (including its players) cannot make money except the Government (often results in 7 vs. 2 so that faction is guaranteed to lose). So this results in players mass quitting both factions involved because of the loss in revenue, however the Government factions do not suffer from the % loss so they often are unstoppable no matter how much you kill them. In addition, they are supported by Game Masters, and given money, and have the only Safe Zone (USS Yukon) in FoM. As a result, most of your time will be spent ganking players or AFK producing and the community is small enough so that your own faction can penalize and kill you so that even trolling is not really an option. Its so poorly programmed it has to regulated by GMs to stop players from abusing their leadership powers, particularly after Eurocore in Closed Beta 2 took over every city in the game.
One of the more interesting features is a stun weapon and arrest feature, but the jail system is regularly exploited and abused by the Government in the game, and no other factions can use it. The police often run into the jail and shoot defenseless players and even if you die, you have to go back and get killed until you work off your time, they use it in wars to harass and decimate armies. The game has no safe zones, players can kill, stun, arrest you at any time and steal your equipment, but not equipped items. So you often loot garbage (food, medkits or half-empty ammo clips) which you often delete because it slows you down or sells for very little money. Respawning often takes 4-6 minutes to get out of a cloning facility and get all of your food,medkits,gear – its extremely unintuitive and slow paced by any standard – and often the player who killed you will be waiting for you so its recommended to put stuff on other colonies.
Subscription Model/Updates – 1/5
After the failure of this game a few years ago, the only remaining person is a guy named Duplex who is patching the game by himself, updates are rare and often trivial. Any content is stuff he has edited from the FoM launch and put back into the game from its original version. The current model is 10 dollars a month for random Roleplay stuff or free for everyone else, none of it matters except for high ranking players, so only leaders in Factions bother paying, its not going to inhibit your gameplay. Its not worth the 10 dollars.
Community – 1.5/5
It will make you yearn for WoW’s community, not that its childish, but that its insufferably RP-laden and loaded with trolls. Goonsquad is taking over one of the factions, the Govt. is loaded with Roleplayers and griefers who abuse the arrest system, often the only motivating factor for playing is to get revenge on other players for ganking you. Eurocore is running around in massive raids killing them both as I write this. It consists largely of players who have played since its inception and new players normally come and leave after a week or two. Its forums are trolled by the Senators/Leaders only, who don’t exist in game, but in the forums.
Conclusion
It has an EvE steep learning curve and even if you get it, its about a couple weeks worth of replayability at best. Its effectively a large Troll simulator, its for a very small audience, most of whom are still around after years. Its by no means broken, but its largely in a unfinished state and relies entirely on player interaction. FoM is principally a chat room with combat and crafting tacked on. Its died 2 times and its population peaked and is now steadily decreasing due to a coupling of shallow gameplay, trolls and pure boredom. As a mostly free game, its okay, but not worth subscribing to until you’ve experienced it.
Comments
You seemed to be filled with as much FoM hate as that GTwander guy is with fanboi'ism. Why do you repeatedly say -- 'Roleplayer' -- like it's somehow dirty or the equivalent of griefing?
This is one of the better FoM reviews I've read. Back in its heyday there was a lot of quality RP going on, but now RP is just used as an excuse for people to be douchebags.
I don't hate the game itself, I'm a gigantic troll and this game is designed to troll and cause rage. However, I can recognize that its not conducive to a game's health and its going to end up eating itself alive after a while. The game's designer has a steadfast refusal to limit player's actions because its a game that forces player decision, the problem is that there are no repercussions for player action (like going to jail in real life, and its free video game so they can remake an account or character even if banned) so any advantage/abuse/exploit you give players will become mandatory gameplay and there is no way to regulating it.
The Roleplayers are almost entirely centralized within the Police and Military with a Senate which exists only its forums. The game as a whole revile them, they are either openly harassing players in game (being they are the only ones who have stun/scanning/arrest powers) or insulting them in a RP style that no one else is emulating on the forums and have an over inflated sense of self-importance. Its also incredibly boring, like C-SPAN in text, the point of the game I've read was as a political simulator with the FPS as an addon (theres more types of stylistic clothing than types of usable combat armor), and it shows in both design and how its run (GMs will lock threads in seconds while the game itself languishes).
I played this for a day or so.
I didnt mind the graphics, they were fine, imo its the playability that counts.
As far as I could tell the game is about heavy pvp and crafting.
After asking if there were any mobs/aliens to kill I was rudely told to go back to playing WoW ;D.
A game needs more than pvp and crafting to survive in todays gaming environment imo.
The community? In general they were helpful, but chat was full of trolls and a couple of ppl who were distincly unhelpful.
Not a game I would continue with in its present state.
Never really thought of FoM as difficult to grasp. Didn't even bother with the tutorial when I hopped in and was out with a group trying to hold the field of dreams in order to cap an objective within the first fifteen minutes.
Granted, adapting to new games ain't hard for someone who finds it by and large predictable.
I think what FoM does for the most part works, but it needs a lot of updating graphically, and agree that the scope is way too narrow to succeed as a retail game.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I tryed the game but it was just not for me. I agree with most of what the OP has reported however, I question the GM part of the review. Is there any kind of evidence of such GM action?
"all weapons have the same DPS" - Wrong, they have different DPS ratings.
"In addition, a number of Game Masters regularly use aimbots on alts and harass players who are at war with their faction, you generally cannot be banned for any reason in the game, particularly when a faction member of mine reported a hacker and was banned from the game by the hacker." - Conspire much? I've never seen anything like this since i've been playing.. since it's inception, sure there have been aimbots and the such but are quickly sorted, players banned.
"Players join factions at Rank 0 and are promoted by the Faction Leaders (Rank 7s), they are essentially appointed by the Game Masters and they rarely promote players past Rank 3 as they can start votes to oust the leader" - Wrong again, you gain automatic promotion to rank 1, and rank 7's are ELECTED for the most part, unless no-one wants the job then the GM has to fill-in.
"Its forums are trolled by the Senators/Leaders only, who don’t exist in game, but in the forums." - Wrong again, forums are trolled by all ranks and even none-playing members. And yes the Senators do exsist because they are actual players that get elected, Leaders im not sure what your on about, yes there are fake charactors run by GM's like the president or somthing but all faction leaders are players.
"Its by no means broken, but its largely in a unfinished state and relies entirely on player interaction" - I agree there, but if you check the forum out and find the thread "TODO LIST" you can what he is working on and hopefully FoM will come into its own.
-A High Quality Zanathid Handgun is 28.0 DPS and a High Quality TAR7 Sniper Rifle is 31.3 DPS, as a result, automatic weapons are generally frowned up in lieu of high-powered less shot weaponry. It becomes more a matter of personal choice as the only thing you worry about is your movement speed with these weapons drawn and/or the addition of a scope.
-It doesn't help that this was recent phenomena and being perpetrated by GMs on their alts. The most popular method is using an Orbit Infineon and jack up your movement speed to a 100% with drugs (which decrease your accuracy) and getting 100% headshots. I've encountered approximately 15 of these players since the current war in-game war started and normally do more damage to you than groups of 50 individuals swarming you.
-I omitted that part because its largely irrelevent, only 1/9 factions gain any benefit from Rank 1 (LED gain arrest powers) and its current leader wants it removed because their allies are murdering them for the amount of griefing it causes.
-I meant that they never log on for any reason, usually they'll killed on sight (by their own subordinates) for having an awful reputation for being MIA as their faction goes to shit. Yes other players do browse the forums, but I've had Rank 6-7s respond to posts within seconds of it being posted, I'm amazed that they even know whats going on in game. Its also not a game feature, a generic BBC forum is not the game, it doesn't say alot about the game when its hardcore members would rather play it than the game.
-This? The only substantial content (Aliens, Worlds, NPCs) is reinserting removed content back into the game, nor does it address anything worthwhile. Gameplay (as far as I'm aware from 6 previous betas) has been revamped a number of times and currently feels like a watered down and slow paced UT match.
Itss a good review, game is very corrupt down to the GM level, possibly even further. I have had people tell me after complaining alot about these GM's etc, that their knife attack no longer works good and that they created alts and the knives works there fine..
Not sure if that holds any water, but that would be pretty sad that they would do something like this.After what I have witnessed of power abuse and exploitation by the GM's who seem to be protected, i wouldnt doubt the creator is one of those worthless power abusing types as well, that actually would do such a thing..
As I have stated before in my review.. this game needs to be let go by whoever these Duplex people are, and someone with the proper ethics, etiquette, and care could fix this.. but its going nowhere as is.
And OMG, i cant believe they didnt reset the server after beta.. they just went right into launch as is.. with all the old base completely in control of the money and market...
A newb doesnt have a chance to stand up to the millions they already have lined in their pockets.
Also the game is a ghosttown, worse numbers than open beta....Everyone is feeling the same... another letdown
Its Me,
Zealosu
You guys are making some serious claims. Do either of you have screenshots, in game mail shots or any other actual proof?
Wow the orignal poster was so wrong on this review its not even funny.
First off, not all the weapons have the same damge per second (DPS).
Some do more than others. While others have much better range. Its "balanced" but not broken.
I dont even know what else to point out in that review. Other than he is right, the graphics are dated, but if your playing Face Of Mankind for pretty graphics and a cool combat PVP leetzor skilz gameplay, then you have chose the wrong game. Go to Planetside or its clone Global Agenda.
So much crap, so little quality.
If you shoot someone or try to engage in combat, this game slaps you in the face and tells you to shut up and RP. I like RPing, but forced RPing is terrible.
"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein
Review is kinda true though.
First of all, OP's review: 0/5
Graphics are awesome. 4/5. Only cheap things about graphics is the sky and water, but both of them are rather rare cause most areas are indoors. Graphics-wise it stands on the TOP10 of current MMOs even maybe at the TOP5. And it's only DDO there too which offers similar quality graphics and free to play.
Gameplay. 5/5. There are a lot of things to do on this game it is just that you have to find em out instead of the majority of games where you are dragged into them and forced to do them.
- There are strong politics. 8 factions, each one with their own goals, trying to compete.
- Crafting: One of the best crafting games i have seen. Not only it's detailed and complex but it earns you apart from money, XP also. In this game you can really play as a crafter-only character by only doing economic stuff and still help your faction in that way as much as you would by fighting.
- Totally skill based. Characters that exist for years have no advantage at all VS new characters. However players that play for years have advantage VS a new player, and that advantage is knowledge/skill in the game. Personally i like my RPGs to have the character advance as time pass so i am not counting this one really into PROs but i know a lot of you will.
- Team/Group based. This game isn't your typical solo MMO where you go solo and kill rabbits to lvlup. In fact it's nothing like that. You are always part of a big team - your faction - and you get your salary from there depending on how much work you did. You work with these people all the time, take decision with them, etc.
- Entirely player driven. There isn't a single NPC in the game.
Combat. 3/5. Combat is kinda typical FPS combat. On top of it you have medkits and even drugs (which are illegal though) to boost you. As the rest of the game, combat as well is usually about team VS team.
As the OP stated, all weapons do about the same damage and that makes all weapons viable, unlike in the situation they were doing different DPS... On the other hand they have other properties which make them different. Range, accuracy, ease of use, weight, rate of fire and damage per hit are all factors that an experienced player would take in account before choosing the right weapon for each situation. Simply put, a pistol has the same DPS with a rifle but using a pistol in anything other than close range would result into your death.
I only rated combat 3/5 cause i am not really fan of FPS combat otherwise i think it is implemented very well.
Community. 5/5. It is one of the best communities i have met so far. Many helplful players. Just don't join Mercrenaries as a new player cause they tend to be a bit snobish
Roleplaying. 5/5. It is amazing the amount of roleplaying there is in this game. Unlike someone wrote earlier, the game doesn't force you into roleplaying, but it actually comes natural to everyone, largely cause of the mechanics of the game (ie different factions).
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
While I have been playing Face of Mankind for the last few days, and I like it. This is just dumb, the graphics in FoM are anything but the top 10 in the mmo genre. They are on par with EQ 1 graphics or Halflife 1, many other MMO's out there I could list above FoM.
I have to admit it's pretty fun and a great game for being free, but not really very deep at all to be honest. I hop on every now and then when I have less than an hour to blow before going somewhere and I don't have time to hop on LoTRO. This isn't something I would pay monthly for in it's current state, only about 15 maps throughout the world. Very close quarters, crafting is actually pretty shallow, etc. Not saying it's bad, as I have fun hopping on a few hours every now and then, but a lot would have to be changed for me to sub.
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-Currently playing FFXIV, and BDO.
fps mmo!might as well wait for MAG on ps3 or HALO REACH on xbox at least you ll have more then 250 player on a given map lol
FoM sounds like a sci fi version of Shadowbane. I never played this game, yet, but RP is one of the only things that really makes a RPG a, well..RPG..even if it is a MMORPG. Shadowbane, just like FoM, has player politics, lots. All it takes is one moron's fat mouth in one nation to spark a whole server war. Soo far from what I been reading in this topic is the sad fact that most of you are most likely little PvE babies who havent been weaned from their mothers yet, no offense to those who have not yet.
Im sure if you put determination just like you determined yourself to raid Scholo 500 times for that piece of armor and then end up finding out it is outdated because blizzard added more better crapola into the pile of already existing crap, I am sure you can learn to love FoM.
Sorry kids but PvP MMOs are not all sunshine and holding hands and singy songy with birds chirping happy tunes, Sorry, No. PvP is the machine that beats this shit out of you until you are a well oiled fighting machine. Good PvPers usually are much more cunning and smarter than a PvEr, after all, there are no strategy guides for beating that player you really dont like much or has been camping you and ruining your experience in the game.
Just because someone supposedly hacks and defeats you, oh well, its just a game, why whine and cry about it? You cant tell a mugger its unfair because he has a knife and you dont.
What I am trying to get the point is this
A: If you dont like PvP, get out of the oven.
B: Only winners cheat.
C: PvP is never "Nice" and "Fair". Everyone exploits.
I am not trolling I am just saying my two cents. PvP life is hard. Im sure people from SWG and Shadowbane, This game, WoW, and that fat bald bearded man who keeps camping your corpse can attest to that. Its a dog eat dog world.
I can name a thousand MMOs that can attest to the hard life of PvP. But im sure those few are good enough.
I played this for a few days, but went back to Neocron after. Neocron has way better graphics, eyecandy, despite the fact that it's much older title than FoM. Though both games in general have dated graphics, Neocron's by comparison is much better. Neocron's character's move faster, and the gameplay is more user responsive. I found it to have a slightly, jittery animation and sometimes the gameplay would freeze here and there. Neocron seems flawless, less laggy, and better pvp environement. The factions are more balanced, as the City Admin (wichi is the equivilant to the police in this one) is not over powered against the other factions.
The only thing that Neocron needs from this game is the population, as it stands now, Neocron's population is very slim/minimal, but if it had this population, I bet most you might enjoy Neocron's balanced factions and classes. BTW it's pve is almost as good as the pvp portions of the game.
Maybe I'll give FoM another try 6 months down the line and see how it's changed then.