Face of Mankind

Face of Mankind, the young MMOFPS from Duplex Systems, has gotten a pretty significant update just a few months after going retail.

A problem that comes with a game containing player-generated content is...well, a lack of content at times. The addition of NPCs with this update will go a long way toward solving that problem in Face of Mankind, as they will bring the introduction of "chained missions, which have a definite starting and ending point, and open up further successive missions upon the completion of prior ones."

NPCs aren't the only addition, however. The city of Berlin has arrived to Face of Mankind as well, but it's not quite the Berlin you remember. Described as a "dilapidated wasteland", the city is an area devoid of any sort of law. If you've not checked out the story behind the fall of Berlin on the FoM site, spend some time catching up before venturing in game -- it's well worth it. The new content is in game now, so if you haven't checked it out for yourself, what are you waiting for?

The open beta isn't open anymore and the roleplaying first-person shooter MMO has converted into the real thing. Face of Mankind has gone into the "retail" phase and has put all of their accounts on a "premium trial period" to get a taste of what a paid account has to offer. The premium trial period will last until December 29th, so be sure to make your mind up quick.

Good news for veterans of the game, however, as you won't need to subscribe to play this time around. Face of Mankind is instead taking a free-to-play/subscription approach, putting things like access to civilian clothing usage, department creation, carrying a third weapon, and faction leadership and other benefits solely in the hands of paying subscribers. Free-to-play accounts can still play and progress in their faction up to rank 4, own 10 clones, and have 20 spaces of inventory.

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If you've been on the fence about trying out Face of Mankind in its earlier iterations, now might be the perfect time to jump in and try the game out. The roleplay heavy MMOFPS is back in action as it launches into open beta and calls for new recruits to join the ranks of the game's eight factions.

The game has undergone significant changes to its in-game systems since the initial release of the game back in 2006 and the subsequent closure of the game in 2007. Faction systems, penalty systems, territory control, and many more aspects of the game have been tweaked to ensure proper function and fun for the players involved. However, even with all of these changes, the publisher of the game, Duplex Systems, has stated that things are not as balanced as they wish it to be but they wish to iron out more problems with the help of players in open beta.

If you're interested in the single, persistent universe game, jump on over to the website, sign up for an account, and grab yourself the client.

Update: Nexeon Technologies has clarified that the game is no longer carrying the "Rebirth" subtitle, and is simply called Face of Mankind once again.

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So, ok, we've been talking about Champions Online recently here in the column. Been talking about it a lot, as a matter of fact. I don't feel like risking having this column turn into a Champions love fest (as much fun as I'm having with the game), so we're going to change gears significantly this time and get onto a completely new train of thought.

This week's topic: social gameplay. No, I don't mean those games you play obsessively/compulsively on Facebook or your social network of choice. I'm talking about how some aspects of gameplay completely rely on human interaction, for better or for worse. It's present in all of our games, but are we really taking advantage of it? We're going to take a look at some games that do take advantage of human-powered conflict, and why, perhaps, it might be a wave of the future for online games.

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You're grinding in World of Warcraft's Stranglethorn Vale (voted most ganktastic by our friends at WoW Insider) when a level 70 druid finds it hilarious to moonfire your lowbie buttocks and camp your corpse for the next eight hours. You're grinding in Lineage II when suddenly someone completely rips you apart with Demon Sword Zariche, and the proceeds to do it over and over again. Face of Mankind players saw the days of other players killing player character police officers "just because it was fun and easy". Final Fantasy XI players dealt with the controversy of monster player killing, known as an MPK. Diablo had the problem of people raising you, killing you, raising you, killing you, raising you, killing you, raising you, killing you... I think you got the point.

Griefing is a problem in MMOs -- a very big problem. As more users enter our wonderful worlds of fantasy and intrigue, more and more of them think it's hilarious to make others suffer and waste time. So why is this phenomenon occuring, and what can developers do about it?

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