April 18 ,2013, Firefall - an MMOFPS with tiki torches and heavy mining machinery.

#/r/Firefall

2,954 Operational Battleframes for 2 years.

Firefall is a team-based MMOFPS with some RPG elements and is the first and only video game from Red 5 Studios. It is currently in closed beta (you can buy immediate access here) and is anticipated to be free-to-play. The story is, basically, Earth sends this massive high tech space ship into a worm-hole-like-thing and it's supposed to be awesome but totally fails and crashes into Earth Brazil. And then because of all the high tech stuff on board a bunch of crazy reactions go off and a big portal thing opens up on Earth letting out these hostile alien lifeforms called "The Chosen". The Chosen dwell in the "melding", a big purple wall, and they will try and kill you and "your family". Seriously, these guys are total jerks if you ever get close enough to hear them. So you're an ARES pilot, which are big battleframes, and you fly around kicking ass and mining for resources. Yeah, you can fly, you've got jump jets. They are awesome.

There are 5 "battleframes" you can choose from which each progress into two more types. The five basic types are: assault (fly around shooting stuff), biotech (poisons/healing), dreadnaught (heavy machine gun), recon (sniper/sneaky), and the engineer (turrets and mobile stations like ammo, hp, and shields). There are more tiers planned but as of right now you can choose from those four and then two more per. You can read more about them here.

When you start playing Firefall you will find yourself "thumping". The game's economy and character progression revolves around mining for resources that were scattered across the land from the big space ship crash reaction mayhem thing. Thumpers are big mining drills that are launched from orbiting space ships down onto the Earth's surface. While the thumper is mining for resources (it takes anywhere between 5-20 minutes depending on the level of thumper you're using) is will make a lot of seismic waves and will attract the attention of the newly improved wildlife of Brazil. This phase of the game will remind people of Starship Troopers. You fight off hoards of mutated bugs.

You get experience from thumping and you get resources. Resources are used for crafting which are used to improve your character. They've changed a lot over time but the current iteration has you using experience to unlock three prerequisites which passively improve your character are used in conjunction with crafting items while also use those three prerequisites (power, cpu, and mass). You start with 4 abilities and if you want to improve those abilities then you have to craft better modules, it's not like you have a spell book or anything like that. Item drops are the same way, you don't loot weapons or armor, you look ammo, health, and resources. If you want cool weapons then you'll find yourself crafting them.

Once you get tired of thumping or you're all maxed out then you can run around doing dynamic missions or fight off the Chosen who will actively try and capture outposts and bases. If no one tries to fight them off then your map is going to look like this as opposed to this. There's also PvP so you can queue up and fight other players in a few select maps and game types. For gametypes there is team deathmatch, sabotage, and harvester. Here's a post explaining them better than I can.

The game is still very much a beta so there is a lot of content missing. They've also redid a lot over the years and the game has changed completely several times so it's likely we've got a long ways to go. It's a fun game, though, and will probably only get better and better as they develop it further. On the one hand it's frustrating that they are so willing to start over from scratch but it's also refreshing that they are willing to do so because it will certainly make it a better game.

I spoke to the moderators of r/Firefall about what they like about the game and how they got into it.

##1. How did you get into Firefall?

u/Hoder_ Following Elementz (curse gaming League of legends) waaaay back in the day when he was still clg and he was posting about the game. I read about it on the forums, kept posting there and before I knew it, I was part of a tight community.

u/zVulture I saw a video for it and through it was 'Ihh, looks interesting but I have other priorities'. Then at the last few moments of the video they slip in "Free to Play". I had to try it then and got hooked since.

u/bctrainers A friend of mine back in 2010 on IRC suggested for me to try out Firefall.

##2. How long have you been playing (AKA how many XP wipes have you survived)?

u/Hoder_ Been playing every since the game went into beta phase, at the start we didn't even have exp (if that's ok for me to tell). Been one hell of a ride so far. I'd say around 1y and a half since the first beta test I think.

u/zVulture Well I think it was the 'third' wave of invites right after Open World was first started. So beyond the few who got in the PvP tests before, I have survived most the beta so far.

u/bctrainers I actually haven't played Firefall since late 2011.

##3. What is your favorite battleframe?

u/Hoder_ Favorite battleframe has to be assault, dealing damage while being mobile is just what makes this game so much fun for me.

u/zVulture This is a hard one to pick, the frames have changed so much through the beta. Current favorites are Dreadnaught (never-ending firepower) and Biotech (Poison everywhere!).

u/bctrainers Assault for me, it's awesome.

##4. Do you prefer PvP or PvE?

u/Hoder_ Currently doing a lot of PvE as it's not as time constricting as PvP (you leave whenever you want). Otherwise you'd find me most of the time in PvP games.

u/zVulture Due to some competitive gaming when I was younger, I got really picky about competitive play. For a hobby, I prefer to keep relaxed and have fun in PvE play.

u/bctrainers PvP. I just like PVP in general, be it FPS or TPS or a MMO.

##5. What is your favorite part of the game?

u/Hoder_ Has to be the company behind the game. These will do anything and everything for the game. We didn't like the huge vertical progression they had with levels? They threw them out. We don't like the tier system and the inbalancements due to crafting? Next patch the tier system is gone and pvp gear is flat on stats.

u/zVulture The main thing I love is Gliding in the amazing world that has been created. Just having the landscape zip past beneath you passing by tree's and enemies alike. The detail gone into creating each area of the game makes it enjoyable just to explore.

u/bctrainers In agreement with hoder here. R5 Studios is probably one of the few companies that actually has fun while making their game. You can see that in the game world as well! The game feels as if it actually has a soul!

##6. If you could change or add anything about the game, what would it be?

u/Hoder_ Change or add anything to the game? I'd say the game is doing pretty great, of course it would be awesome to see it leave beta, go public get some good amounts of people playing it, ... But that's up to the devs, those guys have lives as well. So if I had to add anything to the game? Another pvp mode with objective based pvp (bomb plant, ...), as those are much easier to follow as spectator.

u/zVulture A re-work of the engineer frames. Before the first XP wipe, they were fun to play but lost that when abilities got made temporary or watered down to be more 'support' damage rather than a power in their own right.

u/bctrainers Seeing it get out of beta, on to a live environment. Seeing this game get into the competition of eSports.

##7. Do you have anything you'd like to add?

u/Hoder_ A shout out to red5 studios for taking the time to create this awesome free game and get so much involved with the community. You can talk to them daily on irc, they fly out people to their own studios, have plushies of the favorite creatures ingame and most important of all: They listen to the community!

u/zVulture My and User interaction Red5 has been one of the best experiences. The community has had many suggestions fulfilled by the dev team (big example being darker nights). As well as been willing to delay product release, scrap an entire system because it isn't working the way most like and trying something new. While this delays a 'Completed' game, it gives promise that the game will be worthwhile to play.

u/bctrainers Nothing too much to add. r5 normally sticks around on the #Firefall IRC. They post here on the firefall subreddit from time to time as well. We're all nerds in the grand scheme of things!

---

Check out the Brontodon Brawl Tournament LIVE on

Saturday, April 20th 1900 UTC (7:00 PM) // 1500 EST (3:00 PM} // 1200 PST (12:00 PM) at

www.twitch.tv/r5studios and http://brontodon.com/brawl/ for some PvP gameplay action.

---