Bad times at Red 5

Employees of development studio?? Red 5 got something worse than a lump of coal for Christmas this year; they got a note from management saying that the company d??idn't have the funds to make payroll.

Multiple sources reached out to Kotaku, who broke the story. Red 5 generally pays its employees every other Friday, but was unable to last week when payday fell on Christmas. Instead, several membe?rs of Red 5 reported that they received the following message from ??their employer:

Hi Team,

I regret to inform you that Red5 currently does not?? have the funds necessary to mee?t our payroll scheduled for today Friday, December 25. Due to this, there will not be payroll paid this week.

Red5 and The9, our parent company, is currently working to resolve this, during the holidays, as soon as possible. We ?are hopeful we’ll be able to resolve this and will update the team immediately.

The studio, which is located in Irvine, California, held an internal meeting this morning to attempt to explain the situation. As reported by Game Informer, it claims that the missed payments were at least partially a result of "potential investments failing ?to materialize." ??At time of writing, Red 5 employees are being told they'll be paid on December 30.

This development is the just the latest in a rough couple of months for Red 5. In November, 40 employees were laid off. Last week, "several more" were let go. The ones who are still around probably aren't in much of a productive mood, and likely have their eyes set on January 9 -- the next date that they'll supposedl??y get paid. We'll keep our eye on the situation too, but it sounds like Red 5 might not be long for this world.

Sources: Gam?e Studio Red 5 Misses Pa?yroll On Christmas [Kotaku]
Firefall Studio Red5 Will Try? To Pay Employees On December 30 [Game Informer]

The post Firefall studio couldn’t make payroll on Christmas appeared first on Destructoid.

Described as a toxic work environment

GameFront has a big exposé on Red 5, the developers behind the much delayed Firefall. Part one of the feature was released today, and it focuses mostly on Mark Kern, former CEO of Red 5. Note that we at Destructoid have heard similar stories r?egarding Red 5, and a lot of it lines up with what GameFront has reveal??ed.

Sources have described the working conditions at Red 5 as toxic, from the lack of leadership among the company due to the flat structure, to fear of upsetting Kern or other long-time employees that woul??d result in instant firings. Kern would often disappear for days to weeks at a time, leaving team members to focus on what they thought needed to be done. When Kern would eventually return, he would have different ideas, thus forcing the development team to scrap whatever they had been working on for months.

"[Kern] would shout and scream his perspectives," one former Red 5 employee stated. "He would ignore anything that didn’t?? fit his immediate viewpoint — which was subject to sudden, violent changes. He would rage-email people in the small hours of the night, or on weekends."

The biggest evidence of Kern's action can be seen with Firefall's (at the time) biggest draw, PvP mode. Kern publicly announced on the forums they would be dropping PvP, which was when the developers themselves learned about this for the very first time. Check out Game Front's full exposé on the troubled history of Firefall.

No-Win Situation: The T?roubl??ed History of Firefall, Part 1 [Game Front]

The post Former Red 5 CEO’s violent temper derailed Firefall’s development appeared first on Destructoid.

The last of the four founders ousted from Red 5 Studios

Co-founder and CEO of Red 5 Studios, Mark Kern, has been voted out of the company behind FireFall "effectively immediately." Mark was also removed from the board, and no longer has any authority with Red 5. The story comes via an email sent to employees obtained by Game Front, which you can read for yourself below.

The troubled free-to-play shooter has been going through a lot of issues, from layoffs in September that saw a 10% reduction in staff, to the suspension and retooling of the PvP element that only drew in 3% of?? players.

BRE?AKING: Red 5 ??Board Votes Out Co-Founder Mark Kern As CEO [GameFront]

“My fellow Red 5ers,

“Today, the Red 5 Studios Board of Directors met and after deliberation have decided that Mark Kern will no longer be the Chief Executive Officer or on the Boar??d of Red 5 Studios. Effective immediately Mark will no longer have any authority to act for or on behalf of Red 5 Studios.

“As one of the founde?rs of R??ed 5 Studios and our leader for many, many years, we owe Mark a great deal of appreciation for all that he has done to help build this company and to set the vision for an incredible new game. I am personally grateful for my relationship with Mark and the many years I have worked with him.

“This is a majo?r change to our company. Your managers and I will set to work to cover any and all areas that Mark was directly handling and we are continuing to solidify the plan for 2014. I assure you that we are and will continue to be here to serve and support each of you.

“We will be holding a team meeting to discuss this topic at 11:15 a.m. to??morrow but I wanted to make sure you were officially informed of this significant change to your company.

“Please grab me or any of the managers at any time or give us a ?call if you would like to discuss in private.

“P?lease refrain from discussing this topic outside the company.

Sincerely,
James”

The post FireFall board votes out co-founder Mark Kern appeared first on Destructoid.

And lots of mining

Red5's sci-fi MMO Firefall has been in beta for a very long time, recently hitting that open-beta milestone. So long, in fact, that when I started playing the closed beta in earnest last month, it had transformed into an entirely different game since my initial glimpse of it a year ago.

This substantial overhaul reflects the changes within the MMO genre itself. Static quests, classes, and progressing by leveling up and unlocking new abilities have become, dare I say it, passé. People now clamour for dynamism and more non-linear progression, and this is exactly what Firefall attempts to provide. 

But?? I'm not here to dissect the evolution of a genre. I'm here to tell you the story of Colonel Grumbler, the moustached adventurer, avid miner, turret-obsessed engineer, and piña colada fanatic. What awaits you is a tale of flying through a Brazilian paradise, getting in fights with tornadoes, and unrepentant ravaging of the planet's mineral wealth. Excitement abound. 

Firefall (PC)
Developer: Red5 Studios
Publisher: Red5 Studios
Release: TBA

It wasn't long after basic training -- which consisted of selecting the best moustache, shooting things, and listening to a disembodied female voice drone on and on -- that I found myself on a shuttle on my way to the sanctuary paradise of Copacabana, being serenaded by Rupert Holmes.

"If you like piña coladas," he began "and getting caught in the rain..." I do, Rupert, I really do. "If you're not into yoga, and you have half a brain..." It was like he was peering into my soul. "If you like making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape..." I'm not fussy about where I make love, but that does sound splendid. "Then I'm the love that you've looked for, writ??e to me and escape." Frankly, I was ready to ditch this whole jetpack, mining nonsense and elope, but no sooner than the thought had entered my mind, the shuttle docked, and the p??romise of adventure took hold of me.

There's something remarkably intoxicating about being given a world to play in and very few restrictions. With open-world sandbox-like experiences becoming more common, it threatens to become mundane, but -- for me, at least -- those first few hours filled with exploring the limitations of a new open-world are incredibly exciting. Firefall teaches players the absolute basics, and then simply lets them off the leash, to do w?hatever they want to do. But first, I wanted to get to grips with the role system.

I'??m an engineer. This is a choice I made back at basic training, but I want to emphasize that it's a choice that I'm capable of overturning at any time -- I'm not shackled to my profession. Profession is probably the wrong word actually, just as class or job are too. As a new recruit of the Accord, I'm a capable fella that can turn his hand to any number of roles, all encapsulated by the exoskeleton battleframes. 

Battleframes can be switched out with a quick vis?it to the garage, and the basic choices cover a good range of playstyles, from the heavily-armored dreadnaught that can pummel enemies with mortar fire, to the biotech suit, a medical battleframe that can poison foes while healing allies. I bloody love turrets, however, so I stuck with the engineer most of the time.

Though I carry two weapons -- a handy grenade launcher and a submachine gun, which can be fired from both a first and third-person perspective -- it's my deployable doohickeys that bring all the boys to the yard. Grotesque insects trying to jump at your face? No problem, buddy. I'll just drop this giant blue shield in front of you and save the day, because I'm just that kind of guy.?? A squad of Chosen trying to break up your party? Don't worry about it. I'll just construct a huge, manned turret and blow them all to kingdom come?. 

Grotesque insects? Chosen? What am I talking about, I hear you ask. Well, it's the old story of asteroid meets planet, asteroid falls in love with planet, the two hook up, and humanity is nearly wiped out. Civilization as we knew it is gone, a??nd the landscape has been completely altered. To make everything worse, a spaceship crashed to Earth, devastating yet more of the world, and somehow allowing an alien race known as the Chosen to invade. 

But enough of all that doom and gloom, I've got a jetpack and it's rad. It's even rad??der when one has ?a buddy to fly around with, and so I quickly get into the spirit of the second "M" in MMO, and meet up with a chum so we can brave the world as a duo.

I don't like being told what to do, which works out rather well in Firefall, as it eschews the typical "go here and do this for XP" drag that has defined so?? many games in the genre. Instead, it was up to me how I wanted to progress. The first thing I wanted to do, like any hot-blooded chap, was get in on some ?of that sexy mining action.

Chum in tow, we hovered around the place, looking for a quiet spot to start wrecking the plan??et. Absent x-ray vision, we found ourselves incapable of figuring out what part of the stunning -- yet, at this time, rather small -- world would yield the best minerals, but luckily we had a hammer that could do that for us.

Striking the ground with a hammer revealed its hidden mineral wealth, causing a holographic signpost to pop up, showing the different resou??rces that could be gathered, their rarity, and the percentage of each resource in that area. After only a few minutes, we struck gold. Well, carbon and silicate, and lots of it. 

The second phase of pillaging the world's treasure trove of resources began by calling down a thumper: a large, towering device that falls from the sky, and slowly begins to pound the ground, scoffing up all of its goodies. Thump, thump, thump -- it's all very rhythmic and soothing, until the monsters arrive. They're drawn to the thumper, you see, and fling themselves at it with wild abandon. Protecting our greedy machine became our highest ?priority -- with me laying down turrets and shields, and my ally showering the beasties with bullets. 

There are two things you should know about thumpers -- and I discovered both the hard way. The first is that the "WARNING" hologram that surrounds the mining area is not just for show. I thought it would be most amusing to stand right in the center, and just watch the?? thumper plummet to Earth. And, you know, it was fun. Until it landed and turned my body into a mess of broken bones and gore. 

The second thing that you should know is that there are two types of thumpers, ?one for a single adventurer or a duo, and one for a group. The latter harvests more resources, but it also brings forth an unrelenting horde of monstrosities. Being brave and, I confess, very stupid, my com??rade and I made the mistake of using the group thumper on one occasion, and spent the next few minutes desperately fighting for our lives as the whole area was swallowed up by a never-ending stream of mutated creatures. We did not survive.

Cooperation is the name of the game in Firefall, and conveniently, the structure of the dynamic missions and harvesting makes it far easier to work together, instead of PvE devolving into competition. After our thumping misadventure, my chum and I discovered several other thumper sites on the map. These had all been called down b??y other players, and we were able to assist them without joining a group, and still got a share of the resources. 

It's not all mining and slaughtering the local wildlife, though. No siree. There's a war going on between the Chosen and the Accord, and ?it is one seemingly without end. We ??were on our way to a large port in the south. Both of us had heard tales of a shop where one could purchase a tiny tiki-man with a flaming head who would follow you around for eternity. It sounded like a hoot, so we strapped on gliders -- one of the three means of transportation, which includes jetpacking and taking the shuttle -- and sped down the coast. 

We landed in a warzone. Explosions rang in our ears, bullets flew past our vulnerable heads, and all around us were squads of Chosen, pouring out of drop-pods, bei??ng summoned by alien machines, and hiding beh?ind translucent energy fields. Outside the walls and within the city, people were fighting and dying by the truck-load. 

Such events are commonplace, though this was one of the larger, rarer ones. Dotted all over the land are smaller outposts that need to be defended or recaptured, but these large city assaults are the ultimate expression of this tug of war between the Chosen and the Accord. As such, they require? a substantial number of players to win, and if the defenders fall, then the players become the besiegers. 

We had little time for R&R after saving the port, and by the time we had saved the day, night had fallen, and a report came in on the radio: a strange weather anomaly was moving in on our position, and sure enough, a giant purple tornado was causing quite the stir. It wasn't a normal tornado, of course, and not just because tornadoes aren't normally this pretty. It was artificial?? in nature, with a mechanical core and floating escorts. 

Destroying the twister necessitated destroying its mechanical source, which is easier said that done. Wildlife poured out of the rainforest, teaming up with the anomaly, and getting close to the tornado flung me up into the air, depo?siting me far from the battle and off a cliff. When I finally returned, my new friends had almost defeated the core, but this would only be the beginning of the evening's action.

Next to w??here the tornado had been defeated, a portal appeared. Because nothing bad ever comes from stepping through an unexplored tear into ??a new reality, we all leaped in, eager to investigate a new realm. What a terrible mistake. A Lovecraftian nightmare greeted us, an arena at the heart of some fever dream, with chunks of alien crystal erupting out of the ground, and a veritable army of eldrich horrors sprinting towards us. 

A fight is not how I would describe it. Struggling to survive in a reality that shouldn't exist is more apropos. The last thing I saw was a blinding light, and then nothing. I w??as dead, eventually resurrected far away in the safe confines of the Accord base at Sanctuary. 

From the stunning coastal vistas and verdant jungles of Brazil, to an alien hellscape -- I had traveled far, and collected a fair amount of resources and experience. Upgrading my battleframe is anything but simple, but the payoff is that it's considerably more?? engaging than selecting a new ability upon leveling up.

I wandered over to the crafting station, and before I could build anything, I had to refine all of my resources. Any work done here takes time, so it's often worth doing this when you're about to log off or go on yet another misadventure. Resources refined, I finally set about putting together new weapons, improved jetpacks, and some upgraded turrets. Where crafting can often be ignored -- though it's rarely advised -- in most MMOs, it's pretty much essential in Firefall.

The list of possible components and upgrades is absurdly large -- and at this point it's a bit hard to navigate -- and begs to be experimented with. Building a weapon isn't as simple ?as merely selecting the gun and clicking "manufacture." I collected and refined the basic resources, built separate, essential components, and then added extra non-essential parts which would further increase the item's capabilities. 

Before attaching these new weapons and components to my suit, I had to upgrade the internal workings of the battleframe ?itself. New weapons and augmentations require more energy, more cores, and increase the mass of the frame, and this is where XP comes into play. Experience points can be spent on adding more cores and making the suit more energy efficient. 

Firefall is one of the few MMOs where developing a "build" actually involves construction, and the work that I put in to upgrading my suit added greater meaning to the incremental increase in my damage output and survivability. These aren't just numbers and stats, they are t??he culmination of actual mechanical tinkering and time spent gathering and manufacturing resources and compon?ents. In this sense, every player is an engineer, regardless of what battleframe they favor.

With new weapons, an improved suit, an?d my little tiki-man friend, it was time to test my metal in a batt??le arena. No more fighting Chosen, insects, and bad weather -- other players would be my prey.

You can check out my PVP impressions soon. I h?ave to get back to combing my ma??gnificent moustache. 

The post Firefall beta: Post-apocalyptic pina coladas appeared first on Destructoid.

I can't look away

Yeah, it's a cheesy video but it sure does make me miss when games had live-action cutscenes. Not that I want more games to have live-action stuff again. Oh far from it. I just love watching really ?bad stuff like this while cringing in my seat.

Anyway, Firefall is now in open beta. It's a free-to-play shooter, go check it out.

The post Celebrate Firefall’s open beta with this cheesy trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

And it's amusing

Firefall will be hav??ing its final beta weekend starting at 12:00 PM Pacific this Friday. As with most events ?like this, there is a new trailer for the game, but it's far from normal. It's some combination of a cooking show, talk show, and news program call "Boomer's Bull Kitchen."

It's hilarious to watch, even though no one actually cooks anything, and it also manages to talk about Firefall without feeling like a trailer. Even if y??ou don't care about the game, y??ou should seriously watch this.

Firefall has been in beta for a long time, and while this is the last beta weekend, it will be entering into a full open beta on July 9th. So this weekend isn't really anything that special, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't play. It's a cool game, and I am? looking forward to the open beta. The more free?-to-play games the better.

The post Firefall enters ??last beta weekend with fake cooking show appeared first on Destructoid.

Expect some new updates before then

After what seems like forever, FireFall is finally getting ready to go into open beta come July 9, 2013. Developer Re??d ?5 Studios will continue rolling out updates leading up to the open beta, and current players can expect a handful of new updates.

The updates will see players receiving new bonuses and rewards as they increase the power level of major cities through missions, enter and explore the Melding energy storm, and fight and drive back the hostile alien race?. Players can expect major additions to the crafting systems and the Battleframe progression, including a new user interface.

So who's playing in the FireFall closed beta here?

The post FireFall goes into open beta this July appeared first on Destructoid.

Stress test it, baby

Have you been itching to try out the Firefall beta but couldn't because, you know, beta access codes? Well, Red 5 Studios is about to make your day (or weekend) because the stu??dio has today announced a temporary open beta t?est allowing anyone to participate -- no beta key required.

The Firefall public beta will begin on Friday, January 25 and last for 48 hours. On top of that, two more of these everyone-haul-ass-into-the-bet??a events have been planned by Red 5 for?? February and March.

So go have a blast, and let us know how Firefall is shaping up for you.

The post Firefall begins weekend open beta testing appeared first on Destructoid.

Red 5 Studios' free-to-play shooter Firefall is essentially two games in one. There's the MMO aspect of the game, where hundreds of players can work together in an open-world environment and take part in the overall meta game experience. Then you have the competitive mul?tiplayer, where players will use their cu?stom-designed classes to kill each other to death.

Firefall has seen players in the invite-only beta for almost a year now and in that time, the studio has been gathering fan feedback on how to improve the game. The months of feedback have finally been implemented in the latest major update, all of which made its public debut during gamescom this past week, where players were able to compete for 10,000 Euros in prize money in the Firefall tournament.

There are a lot of new things in Firefall, so I spoke with David Williams, lead class designer at Red 5, to show me just how much has ch?anged.

The biggest?? change to Firefall which affects both the MMO and PvP aspects of the game is the new leveling system. The original system?? wasn't cutting it, so they completely tossed it out the window.

"We didn't?? like the time between upgrades and the fact that the player couldn't really choose their upgrades," David told me. "It was 'Congratulations, you just spent 30 hours gaining experience, and now we give you this!' because that was the next thing on the list. We'v?e actually switched to a tier system, and within each tier you have an entire tech tree for your Battleframe (loadout). So rather than gathering experience points to level up, you're now spending experience points in the tech tree to unlock different upgrades for your battle frame."

With the tier and tech-tree system, you call the shots for how your character progresses. You can upgrade a secondary weapon to give it faster rate of ??fire, or upgrade the shotgun so it will have a faster reload speed. "As a player, you're having to make choices ?about what kinds of bonuses you want."

Another significa??nt addition to Firefall is the changes made to a couple of the classes. Originally, there was a Medic class and "what the players found, and what [Red 5] found, was that at a competitive level you basically had to have [a Medic] and all of the combat was being balanced around the expectation of two or three medics on a five-man team."

Anytime that the team nerfed the Medic in some way, people ended up going from using the Medic all?? the time to never using him at all. "They were either so good that everybody had to have them ??or they were completely terrible and nobody liked playing them at all. There really wasn't an in-between point, the balance point largely didn't exist."

So instead of rebalancing the entire game around the Medic, Red 5 decided on reworking the class entirely. The replacement class is now called the Biotech, and he no longer has a specific healing weapon for teammates. Instead his new main is the needler, which has a vampire-like effect that gives the Biotech health every time a needle strikes a target. While the class doesn't have a gun that's a constant stream of healing ?energy anymore, that doesn't mean he can't aid other players still. He has a healing wave ability, which is a wave of energy that will heal any teammates that get hit by it.

"Now of course if you're going to take something away, we still want this class to be fun," David? adds. "So we added a strong secondary component to the class which is poisons. The same nanites that he's using to heal guys he can also use to poison his enemies. An example of that is this poison trail ability that he has. So for a couple of seconds he leaves this trail of poison which is going to rip apart any ba?d guys that try to follow you. It's also hard to see through. Personally one of the things I like to use it for is if one of my teammates goes down, I run over there, do a quick circle around him with the poison trail and then I can crouch down and I have enough time to get a revive off while the enemies can't see me. As much as possible we like to have our abilities have a dual function, dual purpose."

Lastly, David and I discussed the eSports side of things with Firefall. There's no doubt anymore that competitive gaming is here to stay. An entire hall at gamescom was dedicated to eSports alone, with a number of different games all hosting live cash prize tournaments. To give you some context, this one hall is as big, if not bigger, than either of the main halls at E3. That's a lot of eSports, folks. It was amazing (and difficult to get through?) the huge crowd of gamers all standing in the booths and aisles, watching the big? screens of other people play games while the other four halls of gamescom had a ton of unreleased games on offer.

David believes that Firefall is a eSports game all the way, and a lot of the changes cater towards the pro players. "There was a bunch of things about the game that weren't quite shaping up the way we wanted them to ... The skill cap wasn't high enough and the really top players weren't really able to distance themselves enough from a standard player �We really wanted to push on raising the skill cap, giving the highly skilled players the ability to distance themselves? and really show off their skills in Firefall."

Don't let this scare you off if you've never played. Firefal??l is still "accessibl??e early on" as David told me, they're just providing something that lets the advance players get more out of the game.

The other aspect of the eSports foc??us comes from the eSports Toolkit in Firefall. You can go watch live or prio?r matches and jump to the perspective of each character on the fly. You can also jump to fixed camera positions, use a free-flying camera, and get an automated, overhead top-down camera that will move and focus to wherever the most action is taking place on the map. The tool also lets you slow down and freeze the action, even if the match is live. The toolkit provides recording options as well, with integration to Twitch.TV so you can store your videos.

There's also a more advanced toolkit for shoutcasters, where they get?? more features to cast a match efficiently. They'll be able to see important stats, and there's dual-monitor support where the second monitor will show you all of the camera perspectives at one time. This basically gives you a real sports ??production feel, allowing you to cut straight to the action as you see it occur live.

David told me that players have already posted thousands upon thousands of videos since the launch of the toolkit a couple of weeks ago. It's obviously a good marketing tool for Red 5, but it's also important to the studio as eSports "means that there is always a skill goal for the players.?? They know there time spent in game is always going to make them better and better and better. You don't want to feel like you've never learned everything about the game or that you cannot get any better at it. If ??you do, you get board. There's just constant improvement that is still going to be available. You don't want to hit your head on the ceiling and say 'Oh okay I guess this is as good as I can be.' There's only so good you can get at Tic-Tac-Toe. But there is no limit to how good you can get at chess, for example.

And then the other side is that having a pro circuit it creates a short of a long-term goal for people. I know it was true for me when I was playing Magic professionally for a while. There was only about ten of us making money at the time. But the guys who weren't still liked the idea that we existed, and loved talking to us about it because even though I'll never be a professional videogame player, I like the fact that they're out there. It gives you that 'you know, maybe someday' feel to it. That helps make the game more exciting. Maybe if I play this a little m?ore, I can get good at it. Maybe this is that game that I can really dig my teeth into and I get so good at it that this could happen to me. It's a real cool long-term goal for people to have in the back of their heads.

Even when I stopped playing Magic professionally, I still had that in the back of my head -- 'You know, maybe if I focused on it again, I can?? get back up there.' And I bought a whole bunch of cards with that in the back of my head, even though I knew realistically it wasn't going to happen. Having that in the back of your head makes the game a little? more fun than it would be otherwise."

At the end of the day, it's all about the community. The eSports features add to the overall experience, and gives players something to talk about. It gives players stories to tell, asking ??each other what they thought of last night's game, much like people do with any sports match.

Look for Firefall at PAX Prime this year, otherwise keep tabs on the official website to see how?? you can get into the beta to check all this out for yourself.

The post Firefall’s major update owes thanks to community feedback appeared first on Destructoid.

Remember that game that looks like Borderlands and has a logo that REALLY looks like StarCraft? Well, it seems free-to-play FPS Firefall has hit a pretty high number of registered users: half-a-million to be exact. That's almost like a number worth announcing in a press ?release or something!

“We’re treating Firefall as a service, which means it’s critical that we’re continually addi??ng value and fun for players," said Mark Kern, CEO of developer Red 5. "Having a large and growing community lets us know that we’re on the right track. But more importantly, their feedback helps us stay on the right track.”

Shut up! Just stop it, Mark! You had me at "fun"! YOU HAD ME AT FUN! Because I love fun. So does our Joshua Derocher who seemed to have had a pretty fun time with Firefall at PAX East earlier this year. Hurrah! FUN! Tickle fight??, tee hee hee!

You know what else is fun? Sys??tem specs?? after the jump!

Minimum

• OS: Windows XP (32/64-bit)
• PROCESSOR (AMD): Dual Core @ 2.6 Ghz (Athon 64 x2, Athlon II x2, Phenom II x2)
• PROCESSOR (Intel): Dual Core @ 2.2 Ghz (Core 2, Core i3, Pentium Dual Core)
• GPU: DirectX 9 compatible AMD or Nvidia video card with 1GB RAM (AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4550 or Nvidia Geforce 8600)
• MEMORY: 4 GB

Recommended

• PROCESSOR (AMD): Quad Core @ 2.8 Ghz (Athlon II X4, Phenom, Phenom II X4)
• PROCESSOR (Intel): Quad Core @ 2.4 Ghz (Core 2 Quad, i5, i7)
• GPU: AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4850 or Nvidia Geforce GTS 450
• MEMORY: 4 GB

The post 500,000 enlist for Firefall??, system specs detailed appeared first on Destructoid.

Starkey here, with yet another Firefall post. This time, we have a video discussing how the people at Red 5 Studios are planning to create a strong sense of community?? by using a unique method of content dep?loyment.

It's a pretty interesting look at what I hope will be a big shift in the way MMOs are done, but it definitely comes w?ith a lot of problems. If the community isn't there, then it's going to be that much harder to unlock all of that content,

The post Extra Credits explains Firefall’s ‘staged content’ appeared first on Destructoid.

I played Firefall last year at PAX and even then it was a very impressive shooter. The mechanics were awesome, the art style looks great, and all of the different classes were fun to play. That alone should be enough to make a good free-to-play shooter, but Firefall wants to be more than that. There is a whole open wor?ld with crafting, missions, and player interactions.

Daniel already gave us his impressions on Firefall, but in case you have never heard of it, it's a hybrid of Borderlands, Tribes, and Team Fortress 2 with a layer of MMO tossed into the mix. It's class based, fast paced, and has a gorgeous art style with cel-shaded graphics. I got a chance to see more of the customization options, of which ??there are certainly a lot; this broad range means customizing is accessible to different play styles. The maps have a good deal of verticality to them and huge open areas. Thankfully, these large maps are easy to get ar?ound since you have a jetpack. 

Players will start off their adventure in an open area where you can customize your character, interact with other players, run missions, or jump into a queue for an online match. This open area will be small at first, but players will be able to expand it by fighting back the Melding, the all-surrounding force of evil that threatens mankind. As players gain control over more ground, they will have access to further resources like Crystite, which can be used to create and upgrade your Battleframe. This growing gameplay area will allow the devs to easily add new content as the game expands. The area controlled by the Melding will spawn incursions, which are roaming hordes of enemies that want to eat your face. The farther away you get from the central safe zone, the more likely you are to encounter a player vs. player zone. These areas will be similar to nullsec in EVE Online. 

The Battleframes are Firefall's class system. You can choose to equip Medic, Assault, Dreadnaught (defensive assault), Recon, or?? Engineer. Your character can equip any Battleframe they choose to at any time -- you can even change during a match. Each Battleframe can be leveled up, enhanced, and upgraded on its own. You can play as a Recon and get some cool stuff, but i??f you get bored, you can quickly switch over to being a Medic without having to create a separate character. This makes it insanely easy to experiment with different play styles.

Speaking of Medics, they're similar to medics in Team Fortress 2. They run around with a healing ray that restores life to playe?rs and they can even give others bonus health points. They can use a defibrillator to revive fallen comrades or to ?attack enemies, and they can also inject themselves with adrenaline which allows them to run faster for a while. Recon has a sniper rifle and proximity mines, and Engineers can deploy weapons onto the battlefield.

The Assault class is a heavy damage dealer that can smash down from the sky to stomp enemies. It can be incredibly fun and satisfying to fly up behind someone and then crash down on top of them. This also adds to Firefall's sense of height. There are things going on above you, so you need to watch out. The ?Dreadnaught is very similar to Assault, but geared more towards defense; its additional armor comes at the cost of movement speed.

Firefall is a very competent sho?oter, and with the addition of co-op and player vs. environment content, it has a?? wider appeal than a purely player vs. player multiplayer shooter. It's entirely possible to play the game and level up while just doing PvE content, and you don't have to fight against other players any more than you want to.

The post PAX: Customize your Battleframe in Firefall appeared first on Destructoid.

Remember Firefall? That game I've been talking about for what seems like forever? Well, Red5 is going to be at PAX East ?showing it off for attendees. It will be the first public demo of the invite-only beta. Anyone who shows up to play will get permanent invites to the free-to-play open world FPS. That means you will get early access and have a leg-up when the game launches later this year.

So if you're in the area of the Boston Convention Cent??er... and you already have tickets to PAX East, you should probably check it out. It was the talk of the con at PAX Prime, and I've had a great time with the game so far.  

The post Check out Firefall at PAX East appeared first on Destructoid.

So... I dunno if you brodudes have been following Firefall, if not, you definitely should be. It's pretty cool. Earlier today, Red 5, the studio behind the project released a new developer diary to explain what it is, their launch strategy, and some other nifty bits. It's a solid primer for those that haven't been following our previous coverage. 

As I've said before, I've been thoroughly impressed with everything so far. It looks way better than any free-to-play game has a right to and the gameplay behind it all is really solid, like a fusion of Team Fortress 2, Borderlands and Unreal Tournament 2004. In other words, prett??y freaking badass. Keep it on your rad??ar.

The post Firefall dev’s ‘fireside’ chat appeared first on Destructoid.

This Friday at 4pm Pacific, the team at Red 5 Studios will be hanging with Destructoid for a live streaming preview of Firefall. Join Daniel ??Starkey as he talks with the developers and discusses their work on this team-based sci-fi shooter, finding out where the game is at now and what we can expect from the title when it releases. And as one of the loudest voices from the development community in regards to the proposed SOPA/PIPA bills, you can expect some hearty conversation on that topic to come up as well.

Mark your calendars. It's al?l happening right here on Destructoid this Friday at?? 4pm Pacific!

The post Jo??in Destructoid and Red 5 for a Firefall strea??m Friday! appeared first on Destructoid.

You might have heard of Firefall, Red 5 Studios' upcoming Free-to-Play FPS, but what you might not have heard of is that said studio has gone off and cast an official cosplay team made up of Lee Reherman (maybe you've seen him as "Hawk" on American Gladiators?) who's going to be dressing up as "Typhon" and Crystal Graziano who's, um, pretty and will be walking around as "Mourningstar."

Both will be accompanying Red 5 to future events throughout 2012, wearing costumes crafted by Steve Wang and his team. It's hard to deny that the costumes themselves are nicely done, but am I the only one who thinks that this is a little too much? Not so much the fact that they've created THAT, but really the huge dea??l Red 5 see??m to be making over it.

Have a look at the two videos Red 5 have released showing the effort that went into making these things. But whatever you do, don't try to screw around with Lee while visiting a Firefall booth -- you know,?? pulling funny faces or calling him names -- because he will knock you the hell out.

The post Firefall now has its own official cosplay team appeared first on Destructoid.

Despite going to both PAX Prime and PAX East in 2011 and Firefall's noticeable presence at both events, I haven't actually tried it yet. Which is a shame, because the more I see of the game, the more I feel compelled to play it.

And this new trailer for the Dreadnaught battleframe shows the different talents and abilities you'll have on offer if you pick this minigun-carrying class. Unlike the slow, pondering Heavy from Team Fortress 2, the Dreadnaught seems to have a g??ood range of skills that will stop them from being bogged down or picked off from afar.

Plus you throw in jetpacks into the deal and Firefall is looking like a fun game. But with PlanetSide 2 on its way, will there be room fo??r two big MMO/shooter titles? Have you guys already picked a game as the one for you, or is there enough room in your heart for both?

The post New Firefall trailer shows the Dreadnaught battlefr??ame appeared first on Destructoid.

The first thing pretty much everyone notices at this year's PAX Prime are the several dozen massive banner ads for Firefall, a free-to-play MMOFPS/TPS and the first project of Red 5 Studios. Firefall was first announced at last year's PAX Prime and playable earlier this year at PAX East. 

I got to play for an hour or so, and I came away feeling like it was a fusion of Unreal Tournmanet 2004 and Borderlands. There are a few different modes, including instanced eSports maps for the competitive folks, as well as a persistent universe that gives players dynamic miss?ions based on what is going on in the game world.

The "campaign" centers on a conflict between humans and an AI-controlled alien faction known as the "Chosen." Periodically, the Chosen will attempt to capture player-controlled cities and outposts by taking out commu?nications and sweeping in with dropships. The players attempt to repel these invasions by protecting generators and antennae, using massive turrets to fight off the Chosen's battleships. If the humans succeed, they are well-rewarded; if the players lose the aliens maintain control of the area and will need to be pushed out eventually. 

There are several classes to play and they include a medic, heavy weapons, and sniper. Each class gains skills as they play and upgrade their equipment. For example, when I started playing I had one relatively weak rifle with a one-off ability that allowed me to load up a sticky explosive rounds. Within about 30 minutes, I acquired a rifle that could rapidly fire about a dozen of those sticky rounds. It?? radically changed my play-style. Instead of hiding out and picking off foes from afar, I could get in close and take out scores of them quite easily. And because all players have jetpacks, anytime I found myself a bit overwhelmed, I could simply fly away.

After logging quite a bit of time in the "MMO" side of Firefall, I hopped into an instanced PvP map. Much like World of Warcarft's battlegrounds, all of your items and equipment from the overworld carry over into PvP. You're also given similar dynamic objectives to accomplish with the rest of your team that reminded me a bit of Team Fortress 2. I had a p?retty good time with it, and found myself shouting more than a few obscenities in both excitement and fr?ustration. 

Firefall still has a few months to go before it launches this winter, but what I saw was really tight. The game itself is gorgeous, and everything ju?st felt smooth. The learning curve is very gene?rous, and I was able to pick it up quickly, coming away from it with a really solid understanding of a lot of the basic mechanics.

There's a lot of talent behind this project, including the project lead for World of Warcraft, so it's a safe bet to keep this on?e on your radar. 

The post Hands-on: Firefall appeared first on Destructoid.

This trailer managed to elude us when it went live a few days ago, and that needs to be rectified. FireFall is a ??free-to-play open-world third-person-shooter, which means that this sentence has a lot of hyphens. It also looks r?eally cool. 

The game seems to be simple enough -- there's a huge world with loads of players in it, boosting around on jetpacks and shooting everything. That's exactly what I like to se?e in ??my videogames, so I'm pretty eager to check it out. 

Watch th?e video and sign up for the beta if you're into it. I definitely? will be.

The post FireFall trailer has j?etpacks, guns, needs nothing else! appeared first on Destructoid.