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FoM (Face of Mankind) PvP vid
Agricola1
Member UncommonPosts: 4,977
I've been playing Face of Mankind recently and made this FDC recruitment vid, thought I'd show it for those that have never heard of FoM. The game is free to download and free to play, one single server, open PvP, real player run factions, no levels, penalty points for being a naughty boy, player prison for naughty boys arrested by the police (the police are also a player run faction and run the prisons), drugs, prison breaks, player housing, smuggling and the list goes on.
Here's the vid anyway, CLICK. It's footage shot from yesterdays reprisals against Brootherhood of the Shadows (drug dealers/smugglers/makers). The Brootherhood ambushed and killed a 3 man Freedom Defense Corps (the army faction) patrol in New York City. We gathered up and declared war on the Brootherhood then engaged in several fast strikes first in their home turf of Tokyo, catching them unawares killing many then vorting out quickly. We then cleaned up New York doing large fast moving patrols and cleaning the streets.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
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BoS rules you, and your stinky LED homeboys.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
BoS are a very tough faction and that vid shows us doing suprise attacks and basically bumrushing them unawares. In straight fights with equal numbers BoS are very tough mainly due to the fact they all are shit faced on high quality coca and us FDC recruits are too poor to afford your drugs
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
FDC is maybe the only faction worth being called a faction in my opinion. They will help you even if you are a newbie, they will assist you in fights, they move as a team, die as a team or win as a team. All other factions suffer from too many rogues/gankers, ineffective leaderships, FC farmers and generally lack coordination and team playing. I highly recommend FDC.
"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."
That vids made me want to get back in the action, thank Agricola, but being GOM we only attack when we are provoked, though that is usually quite often
. For people crying out for something different in the MMO world this is a game you should try, its as far away from the EQ/WOW model as you can get and you really feel part of a living breathing world trying to bash the shit out of each other, its the only open PVP game I can swallow as its very much skill based not uber gear based, though expect to get ganked its part of the initiation process 
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
We recently had a war with GoM, your guys were helping BoS break into DMC for a prison break or just some plain slaughter. FDC were assisting LED in holding the prison and GoM assisted BoS, to cut a long story short GoM ignored us and we ended up declaring martial law on Aurelia.
FoM is the closest thing you'll ever get to SWG pre-CU and in many ways it's alot better.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Looked more zerg-based than skill-based.
Skill-based PVP is LoL, TF2, Starcraft 2, etc.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
TF2 is a fps
SC2 is a rts
and League of Legends, is that considered a mmo?
Hi, welcome to the mmo forums. DAOC, WAR, WoW, GuildWars2, EvE all PvP mmos.
-In before derp derp those arent Skill Based...
I disagree with this, as when we (GOM) were at war with the Mercs we were able to defend ourselves against their zergs and surprise attacks by being organised and setting ourselves up at strategic points on Aurelia that made it hard for any number of Mercs to take us out completely. Now that to me takes skill on the part of the individual and collective, they inturn tried to pull us away from our points by launching smaller group attacks. If a game has tactics and strategies that can overcome the odds I call that skill based.
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Well you can't really say that though. In virtually every MMORPG skill has a non-zero importance, but presumably you wouldn't call the zergiest of MMORPGs skill-based.
It's about the relative importance of each factor of winning (such as Population, Skill, Progression) and how large an impact they have on battle. "Skill-based" is a term I'd only apply to games which minimize or eliminate non-skill factors. So something like Planetside is skill-based because population limits keep fights even, progression is lateral (and therefore a non-issue in the majority of fights), leaving skill as the only real factor for winning.
Just because an expert squad might be able to handle 2:1 odds doesn't change the fact that a game which allows 2:1 odds is inherently much more zerg-based than skill-based. In such games it's not the elite 10-man group who dominates the server, but the organized 200-person guild. And I'm not here to criticize whether people find it fun to mob their enemies, I'm just here to dispute the idea that any such game could be called "skill-based".
DFO, EVE, (and possibly FoM by the looks of it) even have some of the more skill-rewarding combat systems out there, but it's totally overshadowed by the importance of Population and/or Progression, and therefore sort of a waste.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The only thing that was missing was a IMO.
----ITS A TRAP!!!----
There is a subbed option that gives a lot more inventory space, personal housing, civvy clothes and allows you to get past rank 1 in your faction.
Oh yeah.
"DIE, LED SCUM"
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Adding "IMO" doesn't excuse the fact that if someone calls every MMORPG a skill-based game I'm still gonna pat them on the head and tell them they make no sense.
By his definition, every MMORPG is a skill-based game. Hence my post :P
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They are.
Even checkers can devolve into a zerg, where is the skill at that point?
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
What I'm saying is that when skill is a minor element, diluted by many other game elements, calling such a game "skill-based" makes no sense.
Checkers involves two players with a fixed number of pieces. In no way is that "zerging" in the MMORPG sense. Population is balanced: the two players are competing with equal capabilities at the match's onset, in their own private instance (the board.)
A Green player coming in from off-board to stomp Red and Black with 200 Green pieces would be zerging. Nobody would play Checkers if it was like that.
In Checkers there aren't population or progression elements to dilute the importance of skill. It may be a bit shallow as games go, but it's purely decided by skill.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah, I am not trying to be a jerk but its still an opinion. Everyone will argue what takes skill and what doesnt.
*cough* nc2 was unmeasureably better *cough*
But something that worked well in FoM was the Faction interaction and what I call RP-pvp, which you see here in the OP's vid.
FoM is one of the few games since SWG where I feel it's possible to RP without being stared back at by a bunch of confused WoW kiddies who suddenly get a feeling of insecurity and go into their usual knee jerk reaction mode of verbal abuse.
As for the "real skill" argument that happens on a regular basis, well FoM combat is twitch which is why it's described as an MMOFPS. Most MMo's are button mashers with auto target and auto attack, which means you hit tab until you have the target then mash a practiced sequence of keys (usualy no more than 3 keys) until you either win or lose. Most of the crowd that play button mashers (99% of the MMORPG gamers) consider a player good at this to be skillfull, the crowd that play twich based combat disagree and consider button mashers to be not skill based as even a trained chimpanzee could PWN in such a scenario.
Which is not to say a button masher isn't fun, SWG pre-cu was awesome and it was a button masher with its own in built macro programme. Sure the actual combat didn't take any skill, it was more about better gear or more skill points that decided the fight more than anything else. When you could auto target and auto chase your opponent whilst the macro fired off attacks personal skill of the gamer doesn't come into it. It was still alot of fun and great to hunt down and kill Jedi, but skill? No.
Twitch based is all manual, also FoM has friendly fire so if you hit your own guy he gets hurt so there is no "spray and pray" as it'll get your buddies killed. You have to manualy aim and dodge, there is no standing on one spot letting a dice roll decide if or how hard the enemy hit. There are no levels so everyone is the same from day 1, the only thing outside of your twitch ability is armour, weapons, boosters, injectors, food, med kits and the guys backing you up. All the gear in the game is available from day 1, the only thing stopping you from getting it is your bank account and ignorance. There are no epic items or any "Gandalf's AK 47's of doom", all items are player made and if you buy a high quality rifle then it's the same as every one of the same make out there.
But that's just my opinion.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Axehilt I get the feeling you don't understand the world of FOM, as what Agricola says there is no progression (other than just getting better at fighting, increasing your skill as a fighter, and survival) in FOM, you have no levels just ranks which do nothing to any stats. You are dropped into the game and need to arm yourself and get some gear straight away, the combat is pure twitch based, but if you wear heavy armour and carry a big gun your movement is gimped, you move really slow as opposed to wearing light armour and carrying a pistol but of course the former deals more damage/take more damage than that the latter. The game is based around teamwork, tactics and strategies not gearscore and levels so I say again that to me is a skill based game. You should give it a try its F2P with an optional sub if you like it.
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Of course he wrote his opinion... what you expected him to write, your opinion?
"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."
I do understand how it works. (although it's been like 7 years since I was in beta FoM.)
It's a PVP game where Skill is diluted by Population. Sounds like items/drugs are also a factor, and not readily available -- that means Progression also dilutes Skill's importance (even if it might not be as bad as full-fledged RPGs.)
There are too many games that do PVP right (by not diluting it with non-Skill factors) for me to be interested in trying FoM again.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
lol..FoM has some good memories with my friends. I remember there were a lot of us waiting to start a mission in a corridor and we led some unsuspecting guy down the hall and in a small area then owned him took all his stuff then ran back and acted like nothing happened lol. good times.
Instead of "PvP game" i would describe it more of a faction warfare game, with no character progression but instead "faction progression". What happens is that if you have a decent leadership, if you treat newbies well, if you have good economy, only then you will get the population handicap. That's what i mean earlier by "faction progression". People won't join a shitty faction, or they will join and leave, or they will act as rogue, or they will just farm faction credits, or they will just be disobedient.
So yes, everything counts and in combat sure there are more things than plain WASD+aim skill. The population i previously mentioned, drugs, food, armor, weapons... the economy. If you go at war with the drug dealers for example, you could had the foresight to make a deal with someone in there to supply you drugs even at war time, for a special price. If you didn't yes, you will be short on drugs, but still your faction has some other perk that balances the fact that drug dealers have the drugs, even if your faction's perk isn't combat based.
So yes, everything counts, not only skill, and that's what makes it a MMORPG. I can't accept the games you mentioned as MMORPGs - i don't think they are marketed as such anyway. RPGs are - like it or not - tied with progression, and if you take the progression part out of their PvP part, you could as well be playing some PvE only game (like Final Fantasy) and checkers or LoL as you said.
Having accepted that, which is something i think you personally hadn't, you can abstractly say some MMO is skill based when the most important thing that decides combat's outcome is player(s)' skill. And FoM yes, falls under this description.
ps1: Drugs have nothing to do with progression. It's one specific faction's perk, the drug dealers' aka Brotherhood of Shadows aka BoS. You can roll a BoS character, go to the first mining/production terminal you come across and start producing drugs. Also note that drugs isn't something you can run around like nothing is hapenning cause if you are not careful, apart the faction you are in war, you 'll be fighting cops as well or end up in jail.
ps2: Also, FYI, there is friendly fire
"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."
I've left this game due to the fact it has the worst community of any MMORPG I've ever played (made DFO look like hello kitty online) and that it allows a small amount of players who are buddies with GMs to grief everyone else (one reason no one plays it anymore) by removing all of their XP earnt at the push of a button and forcing their character into perma death.
Until this game is run by a professional development team I'd say avoid it,
Agricola
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis