Fallen Earth's weekly feature included today interesting information regarding travel distance across the world map, with additional comment by Lee Hammock, in depth PvP mechanics and development progress report:

Last weeks Question of the Week seems to have stirred up some interest what with the mention of PvP. Not much concerning PvP loot is set in stone yet, including if there will be any, but I can say we won't have looting of primary items like weapons, armor, etc.

There are a number of issues as to why this is the case, and most of them have to do with money as opposed to any perceived favor of PvE or PvP play (because we like both). It comes down to things like, "If someone loses a weapon or some other valuable item in PvP because they had a lag spike, they call customer service. Our customer service costs then go up, and we have to get more money out of the game to pay for it. People generally don't call customer service if they just get killed in PvP."

Most game designers would love to design a "pure game," one completely removed from economical constraints, because then they could just concentrate on story, immersion, etc, instead of mass appeal, ease of play, etc. A pure game could have concepts like permadeath or unlimited PvP looting because the designer isn't concerned with player retention, only with creating his ideal world that will cater to some very small slice of the player community. With the world we live in, pure games are not an option, as they really don't make money, so instead we have economical games which are designed to be fun and get enough players to make money.

So we have to make choices. It doesn't have anything to do with catering to one style of play or another, or us thinking some group of players aren't worth listening to; it has to do with us getting enough players to keep the game running and keep our jobs. Now I know some folks will argue, "Well (insert game here) does it this way I like so why can't you?" Well, we're not that game and we have different technical, economic, and social constraints.

On that note, the PvP system discussed last week (being able to loot non-primary items like components, consumables, and ammunition) is still very much an idea as opposed to an implementable concept. We feel it's a nice middle ground so you get something for PvP, but it won't turn off a significant amount of players from PvP activities, meaning there will be enough players in the PvP zones to be fun.

This week we're working on polishing up Kaibab Forest, preparing to implement the Grainway, and working on the first town in the Grainway, which is The Drive-In. Next week we'll be working on more Grainway towns, and the week after that is GDC. We're also working on adjusting our item and effects system to get more cool stuff into the hands of players faster, plus we're working on improving the tutorial (more explosions, more mutants, more story, fewer zombies).

1. What's to stop me from sitting in PvE zones for a year, becoming god-like, and then walking around like a tank in PvP zones?

Nothing, sort of. Players can advance along PvP or PvE lines and be competitive in the other style of play throughout the game. PvP players are likely to have higher faction ratings (and higher-rank faction gear accordingly) due to their PvP battles, but PvE players are more likely to have extra APs from AP missions, so things will work out pretty much similarly. Each will miss out on special items from various towns or encounter areas, but that's a pretty even trade off. So a player could play PvE primarily for a year and then go into a PvP zone and keep up, at least numbers wise, with PvP players.

2. Will there be things like riot shields in this game?

Probably not. I agree they would be cool, but they would require a massive restructuring of how weapons work. Maybe in a future expansion, but not for release.

3. Give us an idea of how long it would take to travel from one section of the ingame world to another, so that we can figure out a rough idea of how large the world is by the time it takes to get somewhere instead of a world size.

Time to Travel Across (on foot):
The Plateau: 2 hours north to south
Northfields: 1.5 hours east to west
Kaibab Forest: 2 hours north to south
Grainway: 2.5 hours north to south
Siller's Canyon: 2 hours north to south, but that's very deceptive as there are so many canyons and such you can't travel as the crow flies, or even as the drunken crow flies. It'd probably be more like 4 hours.

If you wanted to run from the southern end of the Plateau to the southern end of Siller's Canyon without dying horribly in radiation or plague zones it would take upwards of 13 hours with all the transitional zones and such between sectors.

4. I wonder if we will be able to shoot without having any hostile NPC / PC in the crosshair ?

You can use your weapons any time you want except on an NPC that is marked as not being a combat target.

5. On a scale from 1 to 10 (World of Warcraft being a 1, EvE Online being an 11), how much of a sandbox will Fallen Earth be?

I would say somewhere in the 5-7 range, but that's just a guess. As the game continues this will increase as new options like housing become available.

6. Are the cloning and other high tech facilities remnants of GlobalTech technology?

Yes. GlobalTech built a whole lot of stuff in its time in the Grand Canyon Province.

Fallen Earth designer Lee Hammock also added the following comment concerning world size:

One thing I forgot to mention: in the 83 km by 83 km map that is Fallen Earth, these five sectors represent maybe 30% of the overall map. We will be expanding into the unused area over time, giving us lots of room to grow with minimal effort. We could have made the areas bigger, but then it would have been lots and lots of empty space with nothing in it at all. We'd prefer things to be a little smaller off the bat, but more interesting, and then we can expand as we go. It's still pretty darn large though.