Fallen Earth Previews and Interview

Fallen Earth is the subject of a couple of new PAX-based previews and an interview with Icarus Studios' Lee Hammock.

Both previews are over at ZAM (here and here), so I'll just quote the first:
Combat is a hybrid action system that requires you to aim your weapons. The damage you do is based partially on your stats, and partially on your skill, we were told by our tour guide extraordinaire Marie Croall. "The range combat reticule is a traditional crosshair, but with the melee we wanted to reflect that you can swing a bat and be a little less precise. That's one of the advantages of melee: I don't have to be targeting someone exactly. We do have hit locations, so if you get a headshot you will do more damage."

There are non-instanced world bosses, including one that's inside a PvP zone, but many of the missions are event-based instances. "The way our instances work is very different from other games [...] As you're doing a storyline you'll get a mission that will unlock a building or a level as an instance. You go into the building and the state of it is dependent upon where you are in the mission. So you could go into a mausoleum with an instance running that's infested, it'll be infected with the Cult of the Dead, and it'll be full of scavenging cannibals. I complete the mission, kill the boss with the help of my clan, I go back, and now it's full of happy settlers who've inhabited it. So, in that way, your world's very custom, depending on where you're at in the storyline." said Croall.

And a little something from the Q&A on Ten Ton Hammer:
Ten Ton Hammer: What are your plans for Fallen Earth post-launch?

Lee Hammock: We've started work on Sector 4, the Grainway. There's going to be a 15 level expansion that hopefully we're going to do a few months after release, and we've talked about doing a boxed expansion about a year after that in addition to regular content updates. We're going to be doing some flash mini-games. we've basically got a whole bunch of stuff on the horizon.

Our game is fairly complex compared to some games and there are certain things we didn't cover in the tutorial, so we're actually adding a stage two tutorial. Our tutorial exists as a completely linear experience, but then you get out into the world and its like, (do whatever you want!) You can go anywhere you want, you can get a mount, go out and kill people, do missions and that's just too much for some people.

So we're adding something in between that we're calling the trainer town which is a small area with 10 or so missions that you can do in any order you want to sort of bridge that completely linear to completely open experience and not have it be so jarring. Plus, it will teach players more about crafting, how to use their mounts and how to use their special abilities.