Darkfall paints itself into a neat little corner.
I have always tried to predict where the developers of Darkfall might take the game, but they have done a nice job of throwing some curve-balls out there. Let me point out first that I am not currently subbed to the game and I want to wait for a trial to play it again. I had my time with the game, (a few months ago I spent a month in game) and enjoyed it to a point but was thrown off by the few bad apples that are allowed to be openly bad apples. If you have a party and allow fighting, maybe one percent of your visitors will fight. But, those very few occurrences of violence will ruin everyone elses good time.
Having said that, it doesn’t take a huge fan of the game to see that they are doing nice things, and are taking their time to do it right. Well, they are attempting to do it right, but mistakes will happen. But, like I always say, if they don’t make mistakes they aren’t trying anything new.
My friend Jay Jay the Wonder Biscuit recently posted about new expansion talk for the DF world, and it looks awesome. More mobs out in the world? That would be good. The place was as dead as a doornail a few months ago.They are listing more improvements on top of that, but the out-in-the-world mobs turned my head the most. The game was so barren that traveling was an exercise in staying awake, and when you finally found a random mob, they acted so similar to each other that you would rather run away that fight another boring fight. So, the mobs in the world thing alone would bring me back.
I think the developers are doing wonderful things, but let me list some things that I think will always stand in the way of Darkfall:
1) The open PvP: This is not a bad thing, and in fact delivers exactly what the developers promised. It’s not that PvE’ers will stay away because they are scared of getting pwned and looted (loot meant nothing when I played, and still means nothing. Players just run around naked in many battles.) but they are scared of being bothered. It’s not more complicated than that. It’s not scary when some kid jumps around in front of your vision in the hopes of being hit by you, or when his name “420NaziHumper420″ or “GayTard34″ is stuck on your screen, or when you might be in the middle of doing something actually fun only to be attacked and killed by a group of 3 other players, and it’s not the “death penalty” because there is absolutely none (the game is a MMOFPS essentially, you die and respawn/die respawn/die respawn) it’s the simple annoying feeling that open pvp brings. While the game is beautifully rendered and has amazing lighting and shadow effects, your sense of immersion is immediately broken when a player named “BlackC*k” decides to follow you around. For an hour. There is nothing hardcore in a PvP system like this, it is actually about as hardcore as a hardcore rock show, meaning that it is really justa bunch of boys rubbing against each other.
2) The system requirements: While it does not take a super-computer to run the game, it does take a pretty beefy one. The shadows and effects simply must be on to really see how pretty this game is, but that takes power. I ran it well enough on this larger PC, but my 2 and a half year old one didn’t do it. It might seem obvious to require the latest hardware to run your game, but one look at how successful WoW is (or Wizard 101 for that matter) will show you that lower system requirements means more machines that can run your game. More machines equals more players.
3) The lack of a trial: This will probably come out at some point, but a simple 10 day trial will not only bring new players to the game but will bring the game out of the “indie” closet. More trial players means more reviews/blogs/podcasts about the game, and more buzz. I will promise you that the most common “buzz” around this game is about how most of the players listen to Nu Metal bands like Godsmack and want to “rape” other players.
The good news? The developers of Darkfall don’t seem to care that anyone else thinks. They are making a game for this very small, very male community. That’s fine to me, and in the end the game really deserves more praise than it gets. It is fantastic looking, is very immersive and so far the developers have proven that updates will be frequent enough and great.
But, if you compare this game to EVE (another “pvp” game that is actually not a pvp game) you can see why EVE is succeeding, and how similar the two games are.
a) Both are “open PvP”, but in EVE there are places you can go to get away from those annoying players.
b) EVE looks great, but gives you options for graphic quality. Even on low settings, however, the game looks good. Darkfall on low settings looks…well, it looks like Darkfall on low settings.
c) EVE has a trial, and a good one at that. While both games are accused of having a “big learning curve” (one of the biggest lies about both), EVE explains themselves and their game while Darkfall can be clunky, with bloated controls.
So, good luck to Darkfall once again. I think the game developers are being smart in growing the game slowly and accurately. They are squarely pointing their sites on a very specific group of players (white boys, age 17-25, pvp’ers, fans of bad metal) but have been attracting players outside of that group. My friend Jay, for example, likes good music and doesn’t even have a goatee! (Wait, do you?) It’s nice to see a game doing what it said it would do, and I will be sure to play it some more in the future. I enjoyed it quite a bit when I played, and feel that it might actually be one of the closest games to come to a really immersive experience, but I just don’t feel like bothering with more annoying players.
Beau
I am surprised you have not tried Fallen Earth Beau, i would think it would be right up your alley … well atleast from a open world, pvp, exlploration perspective.
I’d second the Fallen Earth reccomendation. You just missed the “Free Trial” but I’ll bet they’ll do another, seeing how successful this one was.
I played out of curiosity, found myself swept away by the game, subscribed and have been playing every day since. The community is noticeably mature (in a good way), everyone speaks in full, grammatical sentences and people regularly go out of their way to be helpful.
The game runs nicely on my three-year old machine. All the talk about FE being a “difficult” or “challenging” game seem to be nonsense tome. Maybe if it was your first ever MMO it might be a tad confusing, but for anyone who’s played any other MMO before it will be easy to get up to speed. Combat and crafting manage the trick of being both simple and fun.
It’s a large, interesting, complex world that makes sense. The PvP is restricted to PvP zones, within which it is free-for-all. There are many PvP zones, you get a warning before you enter them, and there is a whole load of non-PvP land all around. You can, therefore, PvP or PvE as preferred, as and when you want it.
There’s even a general light-roleplay vibe going on, since the game runs on allying to 6 factions which each have pretty clear roleplay stereotypes attached.
(That screenshot from Darkfall is gorgeous, by the way – I’ve always thought it looked like a fine place to wander and take photos).
Yeh I played the Fallen Earth beta!
I just didn’t really give it a chance, but I am thinking of looking at the trial again. Thanks guys!
Beau
You’ve put your finger on what wears me down and turns me off of all mmo-pvp systems so far… the annoyance factor. It’s what killed my interest in EQ2 and AoC pvp servers, and the missing factor from most people’s analysis of the phenomenon. Ultimately, no matter how remarkable a persistant, level-based game’s pvp system is, you still have to deal with the people it attracts. Unfortunately, it seems that in general the level of annoyance seems to have a direct correlation to how well they can master and/or misuse the system to their advantage.
Your stereotype of the average DF player is a bit off. From the clans i have been in the average player is well into his 20’s.
Well, I know a good deal of players that are not the stereotype, either. But I will bet you that the majority, even if not a huge majority, is how I described. Also, I am pointing out that one bad player can ruin a party, and that’s what is allowed in Darkfall.
“It’s nice to see a game doing what it said it would do”
I think this is the key point to your entire post. Darkfall is what it was intended to be. The things you point out as unattractive to you most certainly are, but they are also attractive to those folks who are in the target audience.
The real question for me is “Can Darkfall pay the bills and still be Darkfall?” They went for a specific target audience, and have landed it. Did they budget for that target audience though? This is the mistake many games make, and when they don’t pull in WoW numbers, they are suddenly unable to pay the bills.
It’s my hope that Darfall’s budget is in accordance with their audience. I’m a huge fan of open PvP and while I haven’t been able to try Darkfall yet (work and system requirements I’m not ready for just yet), I’d like to see them win.
Smaller audiences that are well targeted can be a source of profit if you budget for their size after all.
I think your critique of Darkfall is a bit besides the point.
The creators were trying to create a game play experience where players are thrush into a brutal, anything-goes world where your only chance of success is finding allies willing to take you under their wing, which most clans do since with ongoing clan warfare bodies are needed.
Yes if you are into solo exploration you are painting a big kill-me sign over your head, and probably will be deservedly killed by aforementioned metal fans. Point is, this is not the game to wander alone and gawk at the world. This is the game where anything goes, and even though I`ve played arenas in WoW in my time, nothing has ever come close to the adrenaline rush all out-survival in DF gives, which is a huge credit for an indie game and a huge hint at what WoW could have been but never became.
There are serious issues that remain unaddressed, mostly the fact that people fight naked(and succeed), and that you can skill up without ever fighting anyone even though the game was touted as a level-by fighting mechanic. That these two problems even made it into release is the reason I`m staying clear of DF for now… but there are many things in this game that you won`t find anywhere else.
I think they missed a trick by not making it permadeath.
As you say being ganked in the way you describe isn’t scary, just annoying. In Diablo 2 Hardcore people were genuinely sweating and jumping out of their seats with the tension.
It does sound very interesting nonetheless.
I was put off early on by all the macroing and exploiting. I realise macroing when it’s allowed by devs isn’t really cheating but it still seems lame as hell to be obliged to sellotape your attack keybind down overnight so you can afk skill. (Or take the alterative – get pwned by people that macroed because you didn’t).
Regarding the trial they’ve clearly been desperate to throttle the numbers after seeing what a fiasco a million players leaving after a month was for AoC and War. Can’t say that isn’t sensible. As long as they are still steadily growing no need for a trial, they clearly don’t want a spike in numbers.
congratulations, you’re what the darkfall community likes to refer as a carebear
it sounds like you only hung around the goblin spawns because once you get further than 20 feet out of a city then you no longer get people trying to jump in front of your arrows, follow you around, annoy you, etc. this doesn’t happen because they will quickly find themselves back at their bindstone when they encounter someone that’s been playing the game longer than an hour. the real agon is a cold and harsh world with no place for such antics – try leaving the goblin spawns and discover it.
You didnt give it too much of a try I’m thinking because in most battles I have been in people are very well geared out because the newbie weapons and armor just dont cut it. So there is a big risk factor seeing as a lot of that armor takes a good bit of time to build up a reserve or more.
I play on a PC that is about 2 and a half years old it ran like shit until I turned post processing effects off now I sit at like 40fps yeah I dont have shadows on, but the world is still beautiful.
The free trial will come in time I am sure.
And lastly thats odd that you say that stereotype about mostly white males in there 17-25 age range. We have like 3 females in our clan and I’ve seen more country guys than anything (you can hear in vent).
You’re right about some things, wrong about others.
Darkfall is not for everyone. True.
Not everyone in the game is a 17 year old nerd that wants to rape other players. There are actually MANY 30+ players. Mature people who are playing the game casually or otherwise and actually pretty normal people.
I think you need to explore Darkfall a little bit more before you can publish opinions. I’ve played other MMOs and I can tell you that the thrill of PvP in Darkfall is more intense than ANY other MMO I’ve ever played or known about. There is massive adrenaline when you’re on the defensive or on the offensive (provided you’re not naked and have your gear and reputation at stake).
Another thing I like is all the freedoms in the game. They allow for creativity, planning and variety. Everyone plays different and it really shows.
I think Darkfall’s biggest problem is its poorly designed communication interface. The fact that it is so hard for two people who stand face to face to communicate with each other quickly really needs to be addressed. The consequence of this issue is that the bad apples (the 17 year old neglected boys that are deprived of attention in the real world) stand out over other more social, mature and friendly people.
To AV’s credit, they are very active and are constantly improving the game.
– Iron Chef
Sorry it took so long to approve your comments, guys! I was at work and always leave approval on, had some run-ins with some weirdos!
Thanks for all the awesome points..I got some reading to do!
“We can (as a guild) be the biggest dicks in the world, the point is it doesn’t matter what people think of us because when it all boils down, we’re making the server more fun for the largest number of people…”
Describes some DFO players behaviour quite vell.
It’s a harsh world.
And as for following two points from your article:
- “it’s not the “death penalty” because there is absolutely none (the game is a MMOFPS essentially, you die and respawn/die respawn/die respawn)”
- “loot meant nothing when I played, and still means nothing. Players just run around naked in many battles.”
I’d say it’s not really true. If you want real fun – you go and pvp in real gear to be more competitive, and this ‘ready-pvp-bag’ can be, and in many cases is very expensive. Naked or trash pvp isn’t real fun for many people.
i really like the concept of the “loose your stuff but htats okay you can buy new one just like it” style of play in concept i just hope that decent gear is not that hard to make yourself or purchase and that this game actually focuses more on guilds grouping together to make a whole armory of arms and equipment because then fighting would be fun. you get the tension of loosing your stuff but the excitement of keeping your victems stuff.
i play eve online right now and the problem i have with it is although pvp is very fun alot of effort still has to be put into getting your gear and that just puts evryone off from fighting to some degree im talking at least 1.5-3 hours for a decent ship fully fit and even more cash for the more epic lvl ships. the end result is 2 hours of work gone in about 35 seconds wich wouldent be that bad if the winner could loot maybe even 45 mins of time’s worth of money off of the defeated ship
You shouldn’t write reviews on things you don’t understand. It’s clear from the first paragraph that you completely missed the point of darkfall.
It’s clear from what you say about the open pvp in DF that you don’t understand the basic mechanics of combat in DF. Gear is VERY important in DF. In high-end pvp, people wear good gear with lots of high-end enchants on it and lots of support gear such as food and potions. It sounds like you played the game for a very short time and got owned by naked scrub pks.
Your comments on people jumping in front of your attacks to get hit by you are dated. You only get a 10 second flag for your first hit on a blue these days. Writing a new review using information from months ago is really unfair to the game.
Regarding your comments on doing something “actually fun” only to be killed by 3 other players… What do you think makes it fun to go out and take risks? It’s the risk that you could get jumped by a group of other players or a single player that is just better at the game (personal skill matters a lot in this game). Again, you really don’t understand darkfall.
Your hardcore rock show analogy is just an immature attempt to dismiss DF players because you obviously feel you need to in order to feel good about yourself. It’s pretty obvious that you played the game for a short while, got owned and ragequit. You didn’t rise to meet your challenges. You fled them and wrote a crappy review.
To anyone who hasn’t played DF, the game is wonderful if you have the ability to handle loss. You will die and lose your stuff. You may die and lose all your stuff. Stuff is easy enough to get that you can easily replace it. DF is the best game out there if you can develop the ability to handle loss and you don’t need to win all the time.
Man, it aint rocket science. I have bee pvp’ing for years, and I assure you that DF has done nothing that I haven’t seen before when it comes to pvp.
I will also promise you that there are more males, 17-25, playing this game than not. That’s not a bad thing, and I never said it was.
Hardcore rock shows are not bad, either, if you enjoy boys everywhere. Again, this is not an insult or an attempt at one. Like EVE, their audience consists mostly (95 percent) of males. And “rage quit?” Really? You are not paying attention to anything I wrote, or how I play games. Where exactly am I saying that Darkfall sucks, or that i hate it? If you’re going to accuse me of being “pwned” and then “rage-quitting,” then at leats make sure that I have done those things first. And “rising to meet challenges” to you might be to spend time playing a game whose community can sometimes ruin it for you, and working towards the goal of “pwning” the ones that “pwned” you, but I don’t see that as a challenge. I wanted to play the game, not spend time worrying about who I needed to seek revenge on, especially when death had no penalty to make them regret it.
I did not need to get to the “high-end” to experience what I did, and what I posted about: my month in Darkfall.
Like I stated in the blog, it IS a good game, and I thought I made that pretty obvious.
Beau
EDIT:posting from my phone! Lol