Greetings!

This week we go back to the roots of the character generation with a quick and simple question: As we create our characters, do we set presets for the starting abilities or do all characters start at completely faction-neutral and 0 skills?
(You may recognize this question from our epic QOTW megathread, here.)

In Earthrise, all characters start at a blank slate. While you have choice of name, race and physical features, your newly cloned character will come to life with no knowledge of the past life, nor any skills retained from his/her previous existence. Retention of such knowledge was beyond the capabilities of the early cloning facilities built at the brink of civilization destruction, so the architects of the cloning facilities had to make sure that characters get proper initiation training after their rebirth. Training isn't as painful as it sounds, and our scientists highly endorse everyone give it a try.

Initiation training has benefits! Your character will get a solid foundation at learning how to survive through calculated training missions and the opportunity to survey options provided by various signature skills. If you aren't sure what to pick right away, or just want to explore the many options available, you can spend your first few hours doing just that and sample the buffet of skills.  We've designed initiation training specifically so you can make a knowledgeable choice about how to develop and proceed in the vast (and dangerous) world ahead of you. Knowledge is power, after all. Once you have a handle on the basics (and an idea of your potential), you will be able to head on your way and take your character in whatever direction you desire.

We have decided to strip character generation from point distribution and choice of archetype in order to emphasize the freedom provided by Earthrise. Every decision made and every point spent should be based not on prior knowledge but on experience gaining through the game itself. This sort of choice also extends to Factions. Neutral to all factions at the outset, you'll quickly be thrown into conflicts following your initiation training where you'll be able to make a stand for one of the factions that you feel compelled to support. Once your alliances start to take a clearer shape, from there on out you'll be provided with many options to further provide your worth to the faction you identify most with.

In holiday news, I'm sure many of you are wondering what's going to happen with QOTW and our weekly Twitter updates. While I will be away for an unspecified but short period of time to enjoy the holidays (and hope you all take some time from the forums to enjoy yours as well), these days have been carefully arranged to avoid any loss of QOTW or weekly fun facts, so be sure to check with us on the 21st and 28th! While PM communication from your friendly community management and public relations staff will understandably see some slowdown and delay, I have it on good authority that Santa Synthia will be peeking in on occasion to the forums to make sure everyone's behaving, so please, if you're feeling the need to be naughty you might want to rethink those thoughts and work on being extra nice during the holidays.

This week's funfact, courtesy of Twitter: Some NPCs in Earthrise are designed to look like people from the dev team!

Enjoy!
~ m.

Excellent. 

If you want to perma-kill someone make sure that they clone at an "early cloning facility".
They will wake up with no memories and it's off to Newbie Isle for them.

Thats a good point Kole. Who is to say Continoma didnt cause the third world war.

I am not surprised, but this is a major lore insight. Well this at least explains why the players have no idea whats happening in the world of Earthrise and creates the bases for a tutorial.

Good move.

I blame the vile scum in the *cough*rats*cough* Nest. I knew they were hiding something! Those dam rouge scientists ruined the cloning technology in order to make us all dumb so they...yes they can rule with ease!

Blank Slate?? Tabula Rasa??

I just had to, was the first thing that popped into my head when I read that. Wonder if it means anything, as in hidden meaning?

What do you mean by race ? There will be different humanoid races available, or just some different bloodlines ?

This is great news. Thank you Masthead!
The freedom of choice and starting process seem just like what I was hoping for.

I think this is a good confirmation that there will be NO advantage in creating a profession alt.
You will not have any skills trained for you so main characters WILL have easier time training those same skills.
Or does the "signature skills" imply otherwise?

Althought there's still other concerns but I will not go into them.

It's old news at this point but this was in fact debunked long, long ago.  It was explicitly confirmed that all skills will have intrinsic and concrete XP costs that will not vary across characters or be influenced by skill history.

So again, this renders alts even more frivolous.  The devs have gone out of their way to ensure the point of alts is for RP and people who plan to cheat the faction system.