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The Fall FAQ
General Questions
What exactly is The Fall – Last Days of Gaia?
The Fall – The Last Days of Gaia is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) being developed by Silver Style Entertainment. More specifically, it is a non-linear, open-ended party-based CRPG set in a post-apocalyptic scenario. More information on the story and the setting can be found here:
http://www.the-fall.com/e/index.php?menu=story
What is the setting?
The Fall takes place in the Southwest of the United States (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico). After a global catastrophe, the ecosystems of the world have collapsed and reformed, so expect wastelands/deserts.
What is the rating for The Fall?
That's not decided yet since the game still has to be completed and rated.
The Fall? Is this in any way related to Fallout?
No. This game is completely different from the Fallout universe. The setting may be somewhat comparable, but overall The Fall is more similar to Mad Max for example, featuring vast deserts/wastelands.
Is TF linear or non-linear?
It is a non-linear game. And you're going to miss many quests, subquests, characters and side plots if you don't explore the world of The Fall. Of course, there's usually more than one way to solve a quest.
When is The Fall going to be available?
The game is currently expected to ship in November 2004.
Will The Fall be available worldwide?
Yes.
Will there be multiplayer?
Yes and no. You'll have to wait until the add-on arrives. If everything works out as planned you can team up with up to five friends and play through the game together in coop.
Will there be a demo?
Probably not. There, however, definitely will be movies demonstrating the gameplay.
Will there be an external beta-test for The Fall?
That's not decided yet and also depends on our publishers.
Is there any way some of my content can get into the game?
Yes. We're always open for community input. Head over to the official forum as there are several threads dedicated to this question. Expect some more options to show up in the future.
Is there a chat channel for The Fall?
Yes, there is. You either need to download an IRC client such as XChat (http://www.xchat.org) or MIRC (http://www.mirc.com) or use a Java client such as this one (http://images.darkgalaxy.com/irc) to connect to and participate in the chat.
Servers to connect:
irc.chatspike.net
irc.norwegianmafia.no
irc.darkgalaxy.com
Port: 6667
Channel: #thefall
Gameplay Questions
How long will The Fall be?
It'll take the average player about 40 to 50 hours to play through the game. However, you can keep on playing afterwards, explore the world and train your character since there aren't any level limits in The Fall. You'll even encounter new, enemies, quests, characters and hidden secrets and the game itself will be more difficult as well!
Is there any kind of time limit on the main quest?
No, there is no time limit on the main storyline, but there can be time limits on some subquests in the game.
Is regular water and food consumption required to survive?
No. Water and food can be used to restore health, but the player isn't forced to keep constantly looking out for them.
How is experience handled in The Fall?
In combat situations only the character that caused damage or even killed an enemy will receive experience for that. And the EXP depends on the amount of damage inflicted. Quest experience, however, will be shared among the party members.
Will there be a fatigue system in the game?
Yes, your characters will need to rest once in a while, or your attributes and skills will go down gradually until you drop unconscious. You can rest in inns or set up camps at appropriate places. You should post guards though to lessen the chances of someone or something attacking you while the other party members are sleeping and lessen the disadvantage should that actually happen.
What is travel like in The Fall?
The Fall is going to feature a world map with locations to click on to move your party to them. You cannot travel to locations that you haven't heard of from NPC's or through the story, although sometimes you are given a rough direction to travel in to get to some spot you haven't visited before. There may be random enemy encounters when you're travelling on the world map, but that's not the focus of the game, thus not being so frequent that it could become annoying.
A minimap will make the navigation in locations easier for you. It is updated in realtime and shows your party members, NPCs and foes. The map can be scaled, made transparent or completely turned off depending on your preference.
Are children going to be in the game? Can you kill them?
Yes, there are children in the game, but it’s not possible to kill them.
How does time progress in the game? Can we see the day/night transition?
Yes, time goes on in the game and there are day/night changes. Currently 24 hours game time equal about 1 hour real-time. That may or may not change a little as result of the final balancing. Day/night changes aren't just visual event to be witnessed, it also affects NPC activities. Some of them will rest then, others may sit down at a campfire and chat or play music.
Are there vehicles in The Fall?Yes, there are. You can get many different types of vehicles, although some may be rare and hard to find. You can also use vehicles in combat. Some of them have mounted weapons.
Combat Questions
Is the combat in The Fall Real-time or Turn-based?
Usually the combat in The Fall is real-time with pause. To elaborate, the game is technically all real-time. You can pause the action at any time and issue orders to any of your party members. There are also auto break points. You can set the action to pause if triggers are activated, like if a character goes below 50% health, runs out of ammo or if an enemy dies among others for example. There are 15 triggers altogether.
One special option is interesting to fans of turn-based battle systems as it can stop the game after each battle round. More precisely, after every character or creature involved in the combat has made one action.
Is there any way to specialize with certain types of weapons?
Yes. For instance, the more kills you make with a PSG-1, the better you learn to handle this specific weapon, making it more efficient in battles. Other types of weapons are not affected by this and if you equip a new PSG-1 you'll only have a small bonus. This is our approach to personalize weapons and make those found earlier not completely obsolete later in the game. You can even give your gun a nick-name if you want to.
Is there area-specific damage in The Fall? Like, can I target the head or the legs of my enemies?
Well, only to a certain extent. You can target the head if you are skilled enough. You can't aim at legs though since the game is supposed to be an RPG, not a combat simulator.
Character Questions
There is one attribute and one skill that deal with diplomacy. Does that mean that TF is a combat-only game?
No, far from it. All interactions will be tested using the charisma score and the speech skill. You can do everything there is to do in a RPG, e.g. talking to NPCs, convincing them to join you or haggle for prices among other things.
Can you pick perks as you level up?
No, you choose talents upon reaching certain skill levels. More precisely, once you amassed enough points in a single skill, you can pick a special talent. The talent is related to that skill and can be chosen when you level up. You can master up to 3 talents (out of 5 available) per skill. You get to pick a talent whenever a skill level hits 75, 85 or 95.
For instance, once you've reached 75 points on “Survival” you can choose between “Cooking” (more health points per meat cooked), “Higher Perception” (ups chance to spot enemies by 10%) or “Influence Animals” (animals won't flee, aggressive ones won't attack).
If you can design your starting character, what kind of customization is there? Can you choose gender, size, hair color, any kind of visual attributes?
Yes, you can choose a gender and adjust how tall and heavy your character is. As for the outer appearance of him or her, you can select a picture out of quite a number of available, pre-made portraits. And if that doesn't meet your preferences you could try to make a texture out of a picture/photo of your choice. Of course, you can change your clothes.
How many types of armor/clothes can you wear and does it change your appearance?
You have access to armors, helmets, boots and gloves among other things. And yes, you'll see them on the character in the game once you have them equipped.
Is there any kind of meter or gauge that keeps track of your overall alignment?
No, we intentionally didn't implement something like that. You can play the game the way you want without being 'rated' by it. Of course, your actions do have consequences on the world nonetheless, for instance, increase or decrease your popularity in certain regions depending on the situation.
NPC Questions
How many party members can you have? Do you have to have any?
You can have up to 6 party members at one time. You're not required to have other characters join your venture, but surviving will be a tough challenge to face on your own.
How will people react to crimes you commit? There won't be that annoying 'commit a crime and everyone knows' aspect, will there?
No. NPCs only react if they see what you're doing. Normal citizens won't attack, unlike guards, but may tell others what they saw.
Will party NPC's interact with each other?
Yes, NPC's interact with each other. Each NPC has his or her own personality and past, and these will sometimes conflict among one another. Party members can talk about the things they're interested and plans or share their take on other characters. It's the main character's (and thus the player's) task to solve a conflict should there be a serious problem.
Technical Questions
Can we make mods for The Fall?
Yes, absolutely! You'll be able to add items to the game or tweak it down to the rule set. Also, we plan to ship additional tools along with the add-on to The Fall. Preliminary information on how to mod parts of the game is already available in the forum, more will be released over time.
Can The Fall be played on Linux?
The team isn't working on a direct port, but The Fall will be tested with Wine. Glitches will be taken care of if it's possible to fix them.
Can you walk inside of buildings?
Yes, you can. All buildings can be entered, and no interior will appear twice. There will be no loading time and you can look into or out of buildings.
What are the system requirements for The Fall?
System requirements (minimum)
Windows® 2000, XP
512 MB RAM
Pentium® 4 2.0 GHz (or equivalent)
2.2 GB free harddrive space
64 MB DirectX compatible video card
DVD-ROM Drive
System requirements (recommended)
Windows® 2000, XP
1 GB RAM
Pentium® 4 2.4 GHz (or equivalent)
2.2 GB free harddrive space
128 MB DirectX compatible video card
DVD-ROM Drive
Sound Questions
Will The Fall use EAX?
No, it won't.
What kind of music will be in The Fall?
The style can be described as “dark-ethno-ambient”. It does have a lot of tribal elements.
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