Fallen Earth's weekly forum feature focuses this week on the upcoming Alpha testing and the community's questions concerning the selection process, NDAs, cost, location and more. Fallen Earth lead designer Lee Hammock posted the following:

Wow, it's been a busy week.

Just in case you missed it before:

- Sorry about the Alpha Test GameSpot ad going up before we announced it. When the signups go live we'll let you know and folks who meet our requirements will be put into the alpha testing pool.

- We're not going to charge people for any part of testing. Ever. May monkeys pelt me with poo if I lie.

This week we're mainly doing clean up work and polishes on towns we've already got the basics on, plus a lot of bug fixing and balance tweaking. Things are moving along well enough and remember, if we're in Alpha Testing now, how far off can Beta be? See, I said the B word. The end of the world must be nigh.

1. Will the NDA say that you a) can't say that you are in, or b) say that you are in, but not disclose details?

The NDA does say both of those things. The first restriction is to prevent social pressure to break the second restriction. As we get to later stages of testing the NDAs get less restrictive. If folks who come in at the Alpha stage go around shouting "OMG suxxorz!" (as opposed to "OMG Waffles!" which means only good things), even though the game isn't finished it can really hurt our chances. We have a means set up for people to give their feedback to us, so feedback will get where it needs to go, but it won't be going public until we've worked the game into better shape.

2. When choosing people for Alpha and Beta, does it matter I am from Europe and not America?

At this stage we're primarily looking at North American testers due to connection speeds and such, but in later stages this may not be the case. Remember, a big part of what we're doing first is ironing out technical wrinkles.

3. What are your plans on releasing the game in Europe? Can we expect FE to arrive in our stores here about the same day they will hit the US stores?

We're not sure yet. This is one of those situations where business negotiations are underway, so I can't say much for fear of jinxing it or giving someone the wrong idea. Suffice to say we are working with some folks in Europe to get the game on European shelves as soon as we can. Believe me, we like Euros as much as dollars (if not more these days) so it's in our best interests to get the game out to Europe as soon as possible.

4. Do you plan on releasing content for all levels, or will you concentrate only on highest levels?

Once the game goes live we'll have a Live Team whose only jobs are fixing bugs and creating content for low- and mid-level characters.

5. When Beta does finally arrive, what form will it be? Will it be "regular" email or will it be FE forum private message?

Email most likely.

6. Will regular bikes be available?

Not for release, and we don't have any plans for them after release. Animating bicycles is damn tough. All those chains and spinning gears? Wow, yeah, I think the animation department would kill me.

7. Will vehicles have the option of improving?

Yes. We have special items like nitro canisters and such that can be used to beef up vehicles.

8. If I mention Lore of the week one more time...will you kill me?

Believe me, if I had a "kill people through the internet" button there would be some smoking corpses this week, but you not among them.

Maybe a lore-focused QOTW next week?

9. Since you are feature complete, I would really like you to revisit clans as a whole QotW -- since you've skipped over questions on them before as it not being finished. Especially touching on how faction applies to clans and how multi-faction clans function. Thanks.

Some of the clan functionality has had to be cut due to time constraints. We've got all the standard clan functionality you would expect in an MMO (ranks, different permissions, clan vault, clan chat, etc) but we've had to cut some of the bells and whistles above that. Currently there's no mechanical reason a CHOTA and an Enforcer couldn't be in the same clan. This is something we have a system to fix, but whether or not we can get it done remains to be seen.