So... I got sucked into a early start of Fallen Earth and to be completely honest I'm not sad about it. Basic Jist is that it's the year 21xx and the world went straight to shit. A Shiva Virus mutated just about everything, centuries worth in a couple weeks. Needless to say, shit died.

If you want to know more about the factions and other stuff, they have a lot of information on the site http://www.fallenearth.com/

Anyways, a basic rundown of the game. You are a clone. After the tutorial you start out in a town of your choosing at level 2. Levels work indirectly in this game. It focuses mainly around Ability Points. You get 20 per level (spread out at 2 AP per 10% level gain). There are 45 levels. You can also gain AP through missions done for NPCs. I don't know the numbers off hand, but there is a lot of potential AP out there.

You use AP to boost stats (strength, perception, intelligence, etc) at 5 AP per stat gain. These are a more generic boost to your abilities. Strength allows you to carry more (about .5 lbs per point), adds HP, Better Melee Damage (etc). Intelligence and perception boost your tradeskill cap levels, and other stuff (I haven't looked that far into it). Perception and Dex affect pistol use, and so on. The site has a full rundown.

You also use AP for skills (Melee, Pistol, Rifle, Armor Use, etc) These skills are 1 for 1.

Tradeskills are raised by using them. Armorcrafting, Weaponry, Ballistics, Nature, Geology, and so on. The interesting thing about this game is that just about any piece of gear that can drop off a mob can be crafted. To call the crafting system robust is a god damned understatement.

You also use AP to boost mutagenics. These are mutations that provide support roles to your gameplay. I know nothing about them yet.

You will get enough AP to max out 4-5 stats, 4-5 skills, and ?? Mutagenics. So far, however, there is no respec, so people have to choose wisely. That's why the Character Builder is so handy!
http://www.sleeping-dragons.co.uk/FallenEarth/index.php

Combat is rather simple. There is no autoattack. You are running around and you see a mob. You click the middle mouse button (the wheel in my case) and your target reticule pops up. It's crosshairs for firearms, a circle for melee weapons. You position the reticule over the enemy. And you click the mouse button (2 handers use either weapon, 1 handers use the particular mouse button) The game then takes a random point within the reticule and checks if a mob is there, throw in armor and dodge, and you got a hit. Aiming for the head is harder but does more damage.

Anywho, I thought I'd mention this because for an indie game it's damn impressive. The world looks pretty good, there's only one server and not a WHOLE lot of lag (though one area has been shit earlier today and some of the towns are slideshows). There's PVP areas, but it doesn't look like it's too much a pain in the ass. Also, mat gathering addicted my OOOh Shiny! worse than EQ2 did.

Here's another site which may contain useful information, maps, guides, etc.
http://www.globaltechatlas.info/

Played this for a few minutes at PAX. It felt sloppy. The character was slow to react to my controls, if you hit the attack button too fast your character starts the attack animation over and over and over without ever hitting, looting feels weird. ect ect

I hadn't heard of it before I stumbled across the booth (which isn't unheard of since I get most of my mmo news here) but when they told me it was launching this month I was hesitant. There is no way they can fix all the minor problems I found in a short time playing before it comes out and there is no telling how many other problems I didn't see.

Graphically it's decent. Nothing groundbreaking but doesn't look dated or anything. It looks like a fallout mmo would look, just has a different story.

Might be worth a playthrough if you aren't keeping busy with another game.

Yeah the animations/controls are a bit "off" but other than that it seemed okay. I had fun for a few minutes then never logged in again. Looting is akward.

Individual looting is kind of awkward. You have to right click each item and "take." I work around that by just shift-right clicking the corpse and it auto-loots all.

I'm really enjoying the crafting. It's a rather intensive and overwhelming list of recipes, but most of it you can buy. But the savings are enough that if you have the time, crafting is preferable.

Originally, I went to craft like 3 heavy pipes for a quest and I was like "11 minutes for each pipe? WTF?" Then I realized that I didn't have to stand there and craft it, it just works as a background process. And when I crashed from some bug and came back, I realized crafting occurs offline too, and you can have a long list of pending things to craft. And each crafting sphere has a station that cuts about 25% of the time off due to a "stocked facility."