If you’re wondering why I have 11 hours of playtime, but only seven hours of Fallen Earth gametime, it’s quite simple: seven hours is all I’ve been able to spend actually playing. As for the other four hours, read on.

First off, let me describe those seven hours I’ve spent playing Fallen Earth. I was filled with a great respect for the people who made this game, mostly because it takes a lot of work to ensure that even trial people like me are happy, and in seven hours, I basically realized that FE is a game I could enjoy playing because everything feels like a step forward.

I crafted, scavenged, and fought my heart out in those seven hours. Saving ammunition by using a wooden plank, I slaughtered rabbits, rats, and survivalists in South Burb and managed to craft myself a belt, a headwrap, a new gun, over 130 pieces of Grilled Chicken, and a riding horse. Each step felt good, because I felt like I was eking out a living in the wasteland, even moreso than in Fallout 3. I can only assume that the game would be even give me more of this feeling as I progressed.

Now as you can guess, I’m in love with Fallen Earth. I’m only seven hours into the game, and I’ve completely grown to adore the personality this game has compared to anything else on the market, and would be more than happy to shell out my hard-earned tutoring paycheck to sustain a subscription.  There’s just one thing that looks to be keeping me from playing the game.

As I mentioned previously, I was having issues with my connection in the game. I sent a ticket to the Fallen Earth support team, and even though I was on a trial, they responded in under 24 hours. Unfortunately, my “knight in shining armor” in this case wasn’t able to do much.

The guy who answered my email sent forwarded my concern to the network techs, and here’s the response from the tech:

“The issues start at the asianetcom (fixed for clarification – Victor)  router so it’s something to do with the ISPs uplink to the rest of the world. There aren’t any lost packets but the response times are a bit on the high side. I don’t think there’s anything we or the player can really do about it though.”

What this means, as far as I understand it, is that one of the connection routers between my country (the Philippines) and Icarus’ game servers is keeping me from getting any information in or out. If there’s a techie sort of reader who can further explain what this means, I’d quite appreciate it.

As a result of this information, I’ve decided to track down asianetcom’s office information so I could talk to them and maybe ask them to see what can be done on their end. Apparently, they have a Philippine phone number I can call, but I don’t know if it’ll do anything really. I also emailed the Fallen Earth people back to ask them for input on what I should say to the people at Asianetcom, but since it’s the weekend in the US, I can understand if they can’t get back to me ASAP.

If there’s anyone there who’s reading this who might be able to help, or might have a better diagnosis for me, I’d appreciate the information. As it happens, I lucked out on Friday night, as I was able to get in and actually play after repeatedly restarting the game. Hopefully, that wasn’t a fluke, and maybe it means I can actually do more than just look but not touch.

And yes, I’m still dreaming about Fallen Earth, but I don’t think I’ll blame Syp anymore. Icarus, I blame you for making such a fun game.

*Sung to the tune of Holding Out for a Hero*

Where has all my bandwidth gone?

Why’s there so much lag?

Where’s the streetwise tech support who’ll fight the rising odds?

Isn’t there a white knight upon a trusty hog?

Late at night I crash and I burn on this lag through which I slog….

I NEED A HERO!

I’m holding out for a hero till the end of the night!

He’s gotta be smart, and he’s gotta be fast, and He’s gotta know FE like whack!

I NEED A HERO!

I’m holding out for a hero till the morning light!

He’s gotta be sure, and he’s gotta be soon, and he’s gotta be larger than life!

——

So, what is this post all about? Well, ever since I blamed Syp for my Fallen Earth-related dream, I’ve been thinking about trying FE again on a trial basis. Luckily, The Escapist has a trial for the game that’s open for people to sign up for, and I managed to get a pass.

After downloading the client, 15 hours of patching over three days (my internet isn’t as fast as EU or US nets, unfortunately), and a bit of additional sleeplessness, I managed to get myself set up for Fallen Earth and was raring to go.

All of this would be well and good, were it not for one thing keeping me from playing: bandwidth issues.

You see, ever since beta, any time I tried to play Fallen Earth, I would suffer horrible lag, and see my bandwidth drop to 0.00 on both the IN and OUT rows of the interface. I thought they would have had it fixed or somewhat alleviated since then, but it seems I was mistaken. Now, this may not even be an issue with Icarus, and it might be with my local ISP here in the Philippines, so I called them up, and the support agent told me that they don’t throttle ports at all. Which means that ideally, my ISP isn’t keeping me from getting good bandwidth on Fallen Earth.

The good folk of the forums on FE suggested I run a traceroute, and everything seemed fine and dandy on that end, which was kind of weird. This means, I have to resort to emailing the Fallen Earth folks, and while I do find my situation important, I know they have a ton of other complaints and issues that need to be addressed, so I don’t know if they’ll even get to me promptly.

In any event, I’m holding out for a hero to come and rescue me from my Fallen Earth woes.

Continuing my travails through Ferelden, I decided to see if I could go to the mage tower and request their aid against the darkspawn. Alas, they’ve been beset by evil forces themselves, and have seen fit to ask for my help instead of the other way around. Of course I offered to help.

As I reached the fourth floor of the tower, this slobbering pile of human death appeared and put my entire party to sleep, leaving us in this Sloth Demon’s domain in the dream world.

Now, that wasn’t bad in and of itself… it’s just that, when I try to transition to another part of the damned area in the Fade, the game crashes.

Recreated the issue at least three times with the same sad result of having to restart DA: O, to no avail.

Alas, I think I’m going to have to take a break and let my computer rest or something, and see if that does the trick. If not, then I’ll have to wait for a patch, or reroll another character.

If any of you have any helpful links from the forums about crashing during the Fade portion of the Broken Circle Questline, I’d quite appreciate any assistance. Does lowering the graphics settings temporarily help?

Apparently, Twitter can be a very useful resource, as I’ve come to realize. So I think I should make a post thanking two specific people with my LOTRO issues.

When I couldn’t create a trial account the normal way, someone with Founder’s Status sent me a referral and we coordinated through DM Twittering.

Ethic of KillTenRats, thank you for your gracious assistance.

Now, when I find myself plagued with connection issues and frequent disconnects, a Turbine representative attempted to contact me through Twitter to see if she could help. I don’t know if I’ll be able to resolve my issue, but a community manager trying to contact me to help resolve my issue brings me much joy.

Meghan Rodberg of Turbine, thank you sending me a tweet.