Darkfall Set For Launch

Darkfall, a PvP-oriented MMORPG that was first announced in 2001, is finally in the process of going live. After dealing with some launch-day bugs, the Darkfall team reports that servers are going up, and they're processing pre-orders to get players in the game. MMOCrunch has an in-depth write-up from the end of the beta, saying that the game is still "rough around the edges," but also that the team has created a "solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time." Ten Ton Hammer had a similar reaction, tempering criticism with praise for the lack of hand-holding.

Comments

Re:30?

[Kagura]

Sorry for the off-topic post, but this has been getting on my nerves. For the past few days, the title of the /. homepage has been "Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters (30)". This is with Firefox 3.

30? 30 what? Am I seeing things?

Go to your preferences page and under the "Index" section, click on "General". Turn the beta index off.

Re:Skimming article text

[Anonymous Coward]

Not for long. That's for the "classic" client that's going to be discontinued next month.

"Premium" client (=shiny Shader Model 3.0 graphics) is already well over 3GB and the minimum requirements for the new expansion coming next month bumps up the official disk space requirement to 6GB. It might be set somewhat over what's really needed, but the bottom line is that in two weeks, EVE Online client will be at least 4.5GB in size.

High resolution textures take up a lot of storage space. Thankfully the space (and bandwidth) is nearly free these days.

Darkfail.

[juuri]

Since leaving WoW quite a bit ago for numerous reasons, most of which they have fixed (still haven't gone back or played the new expansion) I've played nearly every MMO beta/pre-beta/alpha there is out there.

Nearly all of them.

I'm not sure what brought on this bit of self torture as there are more out their then most would think. How many in the last year? Five? Ten? Twenty? Nope. At last count I've played about *forty* different ones in the past year+. While their have been a couple of standouts all of them are going to fail for one reason or the other... which brings us to DarkFall.

Most important reason for failure: Community. You've never, and may probably never ever, have encountered such a bunch of sycophantic whiney idiots this side of an AOL USENET Lover's support group. They can see no wrong in their golden messiah of an MMO. Even worse the mere mention of another game will bring their misguided wrath upon you with more 3 letter acronyms and twelve year old new speak than one may believe possible. While this is a bit funny for a while, it quickly becomes more a cause for murder or suicide, much like realizing you are trapped in an elevator with Carrot Top, while on acid.

Secondly: Graphics. Well okay I get it, some people don't need any sort of graphics to enjoy a game. This too is easy to understand, I've ascended a few characters in NetHack. However the level of graphics must fit the current baseline or at least try to master the best in the genre. DarkFall has terrible graphics for an MMO released in 1995. The world is barren. Character movements are stilted. The art style is like a tribute to the Quake 1 engine. Spell effects are personally quite a stand out to me as they instantly remind one of the beautiful effects from PS1 games. Ahhhh nostalgia in an MMO!

Third: The company creating the game has no idea how manage a community. For all of their ills at least Blizzard somewhat gets it now. I'm sure many will say differently... but if you had played all the swill I've encountered while subjecting myself to this MMO horror fest you would find yourself amazed at just how effing brilliant Blizzard is compared to the others. Most of these companies treat their community like the enemy, have no concept of communication and try to invent new ways to drive players away. DarkFall is no different here, except they get bonuses for trying to mask their failings with "spooky mysterious secrecy".

Fourth: Awww. Fuck it. This is a terrible game, but it does represent a step up for Runescape players

Not that anyone asked but the only game I've played that deserved to be played for the actual story/game/world was Spellborn. But both the developers and their idiotic publishers have doomed this to fail before most people will ever even play it... and Atlantica is a solid game if you can get past their incessant pushing for making you play nearly every day.

That said, a number of the upcoming Chinese MMOs aren't really that bad. Unlike the Korean ones they don't shove the item mall down your throat. Most of them are lacking somewhat in proper stories, translations, lore, but there is some okay gameplay out there. See Perfect World for where the better Chinese MMOs are headed for the English speaking world.

Re:Darkfail.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a step up from Runescape.

To this day I can still count off the top of my head the fun quests Runescape had, Darkfall doesn't have charming or well made quests.

Runescape crafting and resource gathering required a lot of clicks but the system was a lot more engaging for multiple reasons.
In Runescape you had to move from one location to another to gather and craft. In Darkfall gathering was possible in one spot. You may not even leave your starter city for a few gathering tasks.
Crafting requires more of scenery change up until gathers are in enough abundance that you'll just have to wait by your bank or crafting spot to get the resources you need.

In runescape you had to account for nodes being specialized and competed with other players to get the goods. IN Darkfall nodes depletion rate are dependent on how many times you use it and no one else. This is a good thing except nodes hardly deplete so you don't move around which makes gathering to repetitive and a bore. On top of that nodes aren't specialized so going to gather in the wilderness is no different from gathering near the starter cities except that the wilderness has no guard towers to protect you.

I could go on but stop here to cover other things.

The UI in Runescape is better than Darkfall. You can't right click anything in DF. The chat system is more useless than being inside Varrock at peak trading times or the wilderness borders. The camera sucks.

Runescape has items that matter, making pvp all the more thrilling. Darkfall has items that are important but the scale in power is nothing like Adamantite vs Bronze let alone higher quality gear.

Runescape is a skill based game while Darkfall is a level based game in disguise of being skill based. You don't have cockblock nonsense like 500g for a skill nor do you need to train up other skills to access other skills. The only barrier in Runescape is whether or not you pay for the subscription for skill access.

I envisioned what Darkfall could be like. I thought it would be a game for people looking to graduate from Runescape or people interested in Elder Scrolls Oblivion going online.

It is barely worth the time of people who played Runescape and as someone else put it...

"At this point, I think it's fair to say that Darkfall is essentially Oblivion Online - minus the plot, gorgeous graphics, unique skills, engaging quests, fun stealth system, involved combat, Patrick Stewart voiceovers, and everything else that made it a hit." [ http://www.gameolosophy.com/Games/Online/Darkfall-Online-Beta.541609/1 ]

Re:Skimming article text

[SterlingSylver]

So you didn't get to the part of the second article where the author wrote, "what I experienced in the world is still the worst example of an online community I've ever encountered, without question?" That sort of sums up a lot of the game, I think.

My review. . .as if any of you care

[holychicken]

I got into Beta over a month ago.

The good:

I like the fact that one can start a fresh character, jump into the game and immediately start to contribute to the cause. Sure, if you are a noob, you will suck, but that is only because you suck, and not just because your character is worthless gimped.

I like the combat. It is shallow, at least to start, but it is FPS based instead of target-based. I found myself in WoW staring at my bars waiting for CDs to expire. In DF, I have to focus on the screen and lead my target with my spells and archery. I couldn't play a caster or ranged DPS character in any MMO before because of the targeting system made it boring. But DFO makes ranged DPS very entertaining. Melee isn't much more than a knife fight in an FPS, but, honestly, I kind of like that.

Full loot. Some might not like it and I thought I wouldn't, but the rush I get from pretty much every PvP encounter in this game is unlike any I have experienced before.

The Bad.

Forum community is terrible and childish. But, honestly, I find that to be true with EVERY forum of an MMO. I haven't had much of a problem with griefing in the game itself, but it was only beta. . .so who knows what will happen at release. My guild however is one of the most fun I have been in.

Combat lack of depth. I can see this being a deal breaker for a lot of people. It doesn't bother me at all, but it could have a bit more going on.

Crafting/Harvesting is boring and just terrible in general. Harvesting literally is just sitting there clicking every ten seconds. Or, having a macro do it will you go walk the dog, get something to eat, take a dump, molest the girlfriend, masturbate to gay pr0n.

Company inexperience. Everything has been botched for the past few months from a company perspective. Pre-orders pretty much blew up. They have little communication with the community as to what is happening. They announced a release date, didn't say anything for a month, until the week before release they said it would be delayed. It was supposed to launch around noon EST yesterday, didn't launch until 2 in the morning and the servers went up and down all night.

Graphics are "eh" at best.

All that being said, when the pre-orders went up, I spent 3 hours refreshing the page waiting for it to work so I could get in on this game on the ground floor. To me it like an entirely fresh genre and I have enjoyed my time playing the game. It has some SERIOUS problems right now, but I think that if and when they are able to sort them out, this will be a great game. I wish I were at home playing right now instead of at work. . . but I guess that ain't saying much.

Re:My review. . .as if any of you care

[holychicken]

Didn't play any Diablo II so I have a hard to relating to it. But full loot is full loot. Everything you have on your character when you die is fair game to anyone who happens to come along and find your grave before you do.

I have always had another set of gear in the bank so that when I die, I can just run to my bank and grab the other set out. . . but there have been times I have been naked, or close to it. Crappy gear drops all over the place so you are rarely stuck for very long with nothing on. . .and I find a lot of help from within my guild. Really, I think working with a group is vital for this game.

Certainly there is no reason to delete your character when you die and it would probably be a bad idea. You do "skill up" as you use things, so if you hit with your 2-handed sword you get skill points in 2-handed swords and eventually do more damage with those weapons. Thus remaking your character makes you start this process all over again and it is slow going.

The major drawback to the game being "hardcore" is Universal Banks. You can easily just put something in the bank and then run naked to where you need to use it without risking losing your stuff.

As for the DVD, I wouldn't expect it any time soon although there was talk about releasing a box version at some point. Keep in mind that this is technically only the EU release. But, as I said, being a month or two behind DOES NOT make you useless. Sure, 1v1 you would probably get your butt kicked, but you can easily run with a group and still be able to contribute. It is nothing like being a level 1 character vs a level 70 character.

That being said, another drawback to the game is that I don't believe solo play is all that viable. There are not that many mobs that I can solo at this point and I have a hard time seeing them actually becoming soloable at any point. But really, all I have is a month of testing the game and it was up and down all the time so there may be much more to the game than what I know. But if you like FPS games and you like MMOs, it is certainly worth a closer look.

Re:My review. . .as if any of you care

[drsquare]

Have you considered that they're not aiming at the WoW carebear demographic? None of this of course excuses the game from being shit, but there's already a WoW with it's non-looting and few to no death penalties, there's no need to make another one.

Darkfall Survival Guide

[Gotung]

I have put together a guide for new players.

Here: Darkfall Survival Guide

Uploading my first video to Youtube atm. Will link from the site soon.