Of Course… We Just Might Be Whining
If you’ve read my last couple of posts, you know that I am currently playing Champions Online pretty heavily. I am having a lot of fun, and while there are issues, it is a blast and I am enjoying myself quite a bit.
One aspect of CO that I haven’t enjoyed is the forums. The forums for Champs are about as ugly as I have ever seen — filled with bile, rants about how the game sucks and the ever ubiquitous “Look at me, I quit!” posts. Launch-time was the absolute worst, with people clamoring for Cryptic to reinstate the discounted lifetime subscription option just before launch, and then just after launch, yelling just as loudly to be allowed to cancel those same subscriptions. Then a patch went wrong and the game was down for the better part of a day… more yelling.
Certainly, Cryptic brought some of this onto themselves, especially with their now infamous “Launch Day Defense-Nerf”. People see their characters nerfed and they get upset. Once they get upset, they realize that they are paying a monthly fee for this abuse and then they start to get all “The customer is always right…” on the boards. And they might be right, but you can be right, and still be acting like a jackass.
So, in honor of righteous forum rage everywhere, let’s take a tongue-in-cheek (and a little ranty) look at a few signs that might indicate when you’ve crossed the line between incensed consumer and bonafide forum whiner…
1. You Quit!!! – The “I Quit!!!” post has been a favorite since the advent of the MMO forum. In fact, I have it on good authority… let me find that Wikipedia page… hmm… nothing? Oh well then, I have it on great authority that the MMO forum was designed specifically as an outlet for the rage quit post, which becomes a powerful form of therapy allowing you, the disgruntled player, to vent your frustrations instead of doing something silly or productive like… actually quitting the game. Instead you pour your heart into a twelve-point manifesto in which you detail the myriad ways in which this game is poorly designed, has failed to meet your lofty expectations, and causes children all across sub-Saharan Africa to weep.
I get it… I have read enough of these and have even penned one or two. The hope, of course, is that the devs will pick your post out of the trough, read your insightful criticism, change the game and then invite you back with a pat on the back and a special title, “Supreme Game Saver”, “Voice of Reason”, or “We Should’ve Hired You Instead of Brad” or some such…
Uh huh…
The old adage, “You cannot please all of the people all of the time” holds true here. MMO devs are aware that every change they make is going to make some players happy and make others angry. Of course, with your rage quit post, you are neither of these. Instead you put yourself into the category of “People We No Longer Need To Listen To.” Think of it this way, you are sitting on the couch in your boxers, in your disaster of a man-cave, watching football on TV and drinking beer. Your girlfriend of three weeks, loudly storms out of your apartment, yelling about how she is leaving you because you are a slob and her old boyfriend is much more attractive and “team-friendly”. What is the chance that you turn off the TV, put on some decent clothes and clean that apartment before that case of beer is finished?
Yeah, flowers are probably out of the question too. The point is, the devs are the slob and you just packed your panties, slammed the door and made a scene and the only people that care are the forum warriors who are going to reply to your post, telling you to “lrn2ply” and asking you for your stuff. Of course, since they disagree with you, they must all be raging fanboys, which brings me to my next point.
2. Everyone Else Is a Raging Fanboy — If I were standing on an elementary school playground… I would expect to be arrested, but ignore that for a moment. If I were standing on an elementary school playground, eavesdropping on a heated argument, I might expect to hear
“Lego Time Bandits is the coolest game ever!”
“Man, no it’s now. That game is stupid.”
“You’re stupid.”
“Well, your Mom is stupid!”
The 40-year old equivalent to the elementary school playground is the internet gaming forum, and “Raging Fanboy” has become the new “Your Mom!” There was a time when the term fanboy meant someone who liked a game and was not willing to discuss any of the game’s faults. Now it’s used to insult anyone who likes a game you don’t like… or more to the point, the use of the term “Raging Fanboy” means, “I have nothing of value to say and no compelling argument, but anyone who disagrees with me must be a flaming idiot… and… Your Mom is stupid.”
We’ve lost the ability to reason and debate, so instead we yell and insult. Welcome to the forums, or the playground, or talk radio, or Congress… though in Congress, they cleverly replace the term “Raging Fanboy” with “My Esteemed Colleague” which makes them sound official. If you want to sound official you can always give…
3. The Expert Opinion — I am a table top gaming geek and have hung around on many RPG boards in the past. On table top forums, it never fails that as soon as there is a discussion about a game’s combat system, everyone I am talking to suddenly reveals that they have unique experience and amazing insight into combat that I cannot possibly have, and thus, their opinion on the game is unassailable. So, when on a game forum, I always follow the rule:
On an internet gaming forum, anyone you would ever argue with is either in the Special Forces, or is a ninja.
This rule has saved me from many a dead-end argument… and yet I have to admit, that it doesn’t apply as much to MMO forums. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure our favorite online games have ample population from the military and ninjutsu communities, but they just don’t seem to do battle on the forums so much. No, on MMO forums we have a totally different set folks delivering Expert Opinions and that would be the Gaming Industry Insiders and the Lawyers. So, instead of posts on how Game X sucks because it fails to account for the relative value of different weapon systems, or posts about how a ninja could kill you in your sleep by dripping poison down a thread into your snoring mouth… and thus Game X sucks, we get posts like
“As a gaming insider, I can’t believe, <Insert Company Name Here> would treat its customers like this!!” or
“As a lawyer, I ask <Insert Company Name Here> to reconsider their actions as what they have done here is a classic Bait and Switch.”
I outright disbelieve the posts that supposedly come from gaming industry folks, not because I think they don’t play each others games, but because I think it would be considered bad form to have any part in the gaming industry and yet be going onto another company’s forums and criticizing them. The lawyers… Now, I believe the lawyer posts. See, I live in America, where you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting two lawyers. The first one is filing the lawsuit for PETA on behalf of the dead cat and the second one was just attracted to the scent of carrion.
Great… so you’re a lawyer, or at least, you watch Law and Order and have access to Wikipedia. Big deal! The game companies have their own lawyers and those lawyers know how to use Wikipedia too so they have knowledge of what a Bait and Switch is. They also know that you signed away all of your rights when you clicked that “I Accept” button while you were “waiting for this freakin’ slow game to get through the load screen!!!”
And heck, even if you do have a legal leg upon which to stand, the game companies don’t mind. Sue! Fire away! Their lawyers are on retainer, so they currently are paying them to golf and drink martinis. Whereas your lawyer is going to charge you double for the indignity of having to explain to the judge, “Your Honor, we aim to prove that Cryptic did indeed nerf my client’s Personal Force Field, and as a result, my client feels decidedly LESS SUPER.”
Unless you represent yourself, in which case the judge yells, “Your Mom is stupid!” and throws you into jail for impersonating a ninja.
4. The Ol’ Gaming Resume– I am sure there will come a day when your experiences in Ultima Online (pre-Trammel) will contain the valuable life lessons and historical significance of a Korean War Vet, or a survivor of the Great Depression. Until that day, pulling out your gaming resume simply tells us that you have wasted just a little bit more of your life than most of the other people on the forum.
Actually, that is a bit overstated. Your gaming resume can in fact tell us a great deal about you based on the context in which it is used. The first way in which a gaming resume is often used is to set us up for the poster’s Expert Opinion. If that is the case, then please get in line behind the lawyers and the gaming insiders because truly, no one cares. Your accomplishments on UO, EQ, Earth and Beyond, Meridian 59, Rubies of Eventide, or DIKUMud might give you some perspective, but don’t make you an expert on programming, quality assurance, or game design. If you fire off a gaming resume and then start talking about how you don’t like nerfs… then you have as much insight as the kid whose only other game is WoW… because he doesn’t like nerfs either.
The second type of gaming resume poster, I have a little more empathy for. This is someone who mentions their old games because they are desperately trying to recapture their experience with that “magic” MMO… which is typically the first MMO they played that actually hooked them. Now, they miserably shamble from game to game, almost enjoying them, but never quite getting the high they got from THAT game, which ultimately leads them to complain about THIS game. I have a friend for which City of Heroes was his first game and it was quite an experience for him. Now, no game can ever come close, so even though he is bored to tears with CoH, he can’t really get into other games because they don’t compare to the mythologized version of CoH he has playing in his head.
Of course, the irony here is that no game exists that can compete with that first game… not even that first game. Once you cut away that thick coating of nostalgia, most of these folks would go back to their perfect game, quit after a week, and post on the forums about how the game they remember had been ruined by some phantom patch. In reality their love for their game was based less on mechanics and more on the novelty of the MMO experience.
The third type of resume poster is the evil twin of the second. This type of person has BEEN THROUGH HELL and is here to tell us about it. You can usually tell this guy by his forum name… ScrewedBySony, or Flagshipped, or BradHatesMe and his message is always the same, “I played this doomed game before and I tell you this game is doomed just like that last game was doomed. We are all doomed, doomed I say!” The reason for the doom is that some game mechanic is the same as the aforementioned dead game, or the publisher is the same, or that certain members of the dev team are the same.
We get it already! Age of Conan was a disaster at launch. Hellgate London was a failure. Vanguard disappointed you deeply. Darkfall made you weep. The NGE caused the thin veneer that separates this reality with the next to tear away leaving your fragile mind exposed to the shrill, seeping horrors beyond… and now you curl up into a fetal position every time you see a right angle, or a holocron. You know what? Software of this scale is complicated. Games of this scale are complicated. People screw up and sometimes they fail.
But they also learn from their mistakes and succeed. Age of Conan, Vanguard and Darkfall, for all of the bile and venom they generated, are still going. On the other hand, Hellgate is dead and Bill Roper had a large part in that failure… but previously he has also had a part in Blizzard’s success, having worked on the various incarnations of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. So hopefully, we are getting the guy with the talent that led the Blizzard team, with a dose of wisdom and humility from the failure of Flagship. That’s a good mix.
5. You Write a Blog Post Complaining About Complainers – Yeah, it is pretty pathetic, I know… now fight on forum warriors!!
Of Course… We Just Might Be Whining
If you’ve read my last couple of posts, you know that I am currently playing Champions Online pretty heavily. I am having a lot of fun, and while there are issues, it is a blast and I am enjoying myself quite a bit.
One aspect of CO that I haven’t enjoyed is the forums. The forums for Champs are about as ugly as I have ever seen — filled with bile, rants about how the game sucks and the ever ubiquitous “Look at me, I quit!” posts. Launch-time was the absolute worst, with people clamoring for Cryptic to reinstate the discounted lifetime subscription option just before launch, and then just after launch, yelling just as loudly to be allowed to cancel those same subscriptions. Then a patch went wrong and the game was down for the better part of a day… more yelling.
Certainly, Cryptic brought some of this onto themselves, especially with their now infamous “Launch Day Defense-Nerf”. People see their characters nerfed and they get upset. Once they get upset, they realize that they are paying a monthly fee for this abuse and then they start to get all “The customer is always right…” on the boards. And they might be right, but you can be right, and still be acting like a jackass.
So, in honor of righteous forum rage everywhere, let’s take a tongue-in-cheek (and a little ranty) look at a few signs that might indicate when you’ve crossed the line between incensed consumer and bonafide forum whiner…
1. You Quit!!! – The “I Quit!!!” post has been a favorite since the advent of the MMO forum. In fact, I have it on good authority… let me find that Wikipedia page… hmm… nothing? Oh well then, I have it on great authority that the MMO forum was designed specifically as an outlet for the rage quit post, which becomes a powerful form of therapy allowing you, the disgruntled player, to vent your frustrations instead of doing something silly or productive like… actually quitting the game. Instead you pour your heart into a twelve-point manifesto in which you detail the myriad ways in which this game is poorly designed, has failed to meet your lofty expectations, and causes children all across sub-Saharan Africa to weep.
I get it… I have read enough of these and have even penned one or two. The hope, of course, is that the devs will pick your post out of the trough, read your insightful criticism, change the game and then invite you back with a pat on the back and a special title, “Supreme Game Saver”, “Voice of Reason”, or “We Should’ve Hired You Instead of Brad” or some such…
Uh huh…
The old adage, “You cannot please all of the people all of the time” holds true here. MMO devs are aware that every change they make is going to make some players happy and make others angry. Of course, with your rage quit post, you are neither of these. Instead you put yourself into the category of “People We No Longer Need To Listen To.” Think of it this way, you are sitting on the couch in your boxers, in your disaster of a man-cave, watching football on TV and drinking beer. Your girlfriend of three weeks, loudly storms out of your apartment, yelling about how she is leaving you because you are a slob and her old boyfriend is much more attractive and “team-friendly”. What is the chance that you turn off the TV, put on some decent clothes and clean that apartment before that case of beer is finished?
Yeah, flowers are probably out of the question too. The point is, the devs are the slob and you just packed your panties, slammed the door and made a scene and the only people that care are the forum warriors who are going to reply to your post, telling you to “lrn2ply” and asking you for your stuff. Of course, since they disagree with you, they must all be raging fanboys, which brings me to my next point.
2. Everyone Else Is a Raging Fanboy — If I were standing on an elementary school playground… I would expect to be arrested, but ignore that for a moment. If I were standing on an elementary school playground, eavesdropping on a heated argument, I might expect to hear
“Lego Time Bandits is the coolest game ever!”
“Man, no it’s now. That game is stupid.”
“You’re stupid.”
“Well, your Mom is stupid!”
The 40-year old equivalent to the elementary school playground is the internet gaming forum, and “Raging Fanboy” has become the new “Your Mom!” There was a time when the term fanboy meant someone who liked a game and was not willing to discuss any of the game’s faults. Now it’s used to insult anyone who likes a game you don’t like… or more to the point, the use of the term “Raging Fanboy” means, “I have nothing of value to say and no compelling argument, but anyone who disagrees with me must be a flaming idiot… and… Your Mom is stupid.”
We’ve lost the ability to reason and debate, so instead we yell and insult. Welcome to the forums, or the playground, or talk radio, or Congress… though in Congress, they cleverly replace the term “Raging Fanboy” with “My Esteemed Colleague” which makes them sound official. If you want to sound official you can always give…
3. The Expert Opinion — I am a table top gaming geek and have hung around on many RPG boards in the past. On table top forums, it never fails that as soon as there is a discussion about a game’s combat system, everyone I am talking to suddenly reveals that they have unique experience and amazing insight into combat that I cannot possibly have, and thus, their opinion on the game is unassailable. So, when on a game forum, I always follow the rule:
On an internet gaming forum, anyone you would ever argue with is either in the Special Forces, or is a ninja.
This rule has saved me from many a dead-end argument… and yet I have to admit, that it doesn’t apply as much to MMO forums. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure our favorite online games have ample population from the military and ninjutsu communities, but they just don’t seem to do battle on the forums so much. No, on MMO forums we have a totally different set folks delivering Expert Opinions and that would be the Gaming Industry Insiders and the Lawyers. So, instead of posts on how Game X sucks because it fails to account for the relative value of different weapon systems, or posts about how a ninja could kill you in your sleep by dripping poison down a thread into your snoring mouth… and thus Game X sucks, we get posts like
“As a gaming insider, I can’t believe, <Insert Company Name Here> would treat its customers like this!!” or
“As a lawyer, I ask <Insert Company Name Here> to reconsider their actions as what they have done here is a classic Bait and Switch.”
I outright disbelieve the posts that supposedly come from gaming industry folks, not because I think they don’t play each others games, but because I think it would be considered bad form to have any part in the gaming industry and yet be going onto another company’s forums and criticizing them. The lawyers… Now, I believe the lawyer posts. See, I live in America, where you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting two lawyers. The first one is filing the lawsuit for PETA on behalf of the dead cat and the second one was just attracted to the scent of carrion.
Great… so you’re a lawyer, or at least, you watch Law and Order and have access to Wikipedia. Big deal! The game companies have their own lawyers and those lawyers know how to use Wikipedia too so they have knowledge of what a Bait and Switch is. They also know that you signed away all of your rights when you clicked that “I Accept” button while you were “waiting for this freakin’ slow game to get through the load screen!!!”
And heck, even if you do have a legal leg upon which to stand, the game companies don’t mind. Sue! Fire away! Their lawyers are on retainer, so they currently are paying them to golf and drink martinis. Whereas your lawyer is going to charge you double for the indignity of having to explain to the judge, “Your Honor, we aim to prove that Cryptic did indeed nerf my client’s Personal Force Field, and as a result, my client feels decidedly LESS SUPER.”
Unless you represent yourself, in which case the judge yells, “Your Mom is stupid!” and throws you into jail for impersonating a ninja.
4. The Ol’ Gaming Resume– I am sure there will come a day when your experiences in Ultima Online (pre-Trammel) will contain the valuable life lessons and historical significance of a Korean War Vet, or a survivor of the Great Depression. Until that day, pulling out your gaming resume simply tells us that you have wasted just a little bit more of your life than most of the other people on the forum.
Actually, that is a bit overstated. Your gaming resume can in fact tell us a great deal about you based on the context in which it is used. The first way in which a gaming resume is often used is to set us up for the poster’s Expert Opinion. If that is the case, then please get in line behind the lawyers and the gaming insiders because truly, no one cares. Your accomplishments on UO, EQ, Earth and Beyond, Meridian 59, Rubies of Eventide, or DIKUMud might give you some perspective, but don’t make you an expert on programming, quality assurance, or game design. If you fire off a gaming resume and then start talking about how you don’t like nerfs… then you have as much insight as the kid whose only other game is WoW… because he doesn’t like nerfs either.
The second type of gaming resume poster, I have a little more empathy for. This is someone who mentions their old games because they are desperately trying to recapture their experience with that “magic” MMO… which is typically the first MMO they played that actually hooked them. Now, they miserably shamble from game to game, almost enjoying them, but never quite getting the high they got from THAT game, which ultimately leads them to complain about THIS game. I have a friend for which City of Heroes was his first game and it was quite an experience for him. Now, no game can ever come close, so even though he is bored to tears with CoH, he can’t really get into other games because they don’t compare to the mythologized version of CoH he has playing in his head.
Of course, the irony here is that no game exists that can compete with that first game… not even that first game. Once you cut away that thick coating of nostalgia, most of these folks would go back to their perfect game, quit after a week, and post on the forums about how the game they remember had been ruined by some phantom patch. In reality their love for their game was based less on mechanics and more on the novelty of the MMO experience.
The third type of resume poster is the evil twin of the second. This type of person has BEEN THROUGH HELL and is here to tell us about it. You can usually tell this guy by his forum name… ScrewedBySony, or Flagshipped, or BradHatesMe and his message is always the same, “I played this doomed game before and I tell you this game is doomed just like that last game was doomed. We are all doomed, doomed I say!” The reason for the doom is that some game mechanic is the same as the aforementioned dead game, or the publisher is the same, or that certain members of the dev team are the same.
We get it already! Age of Conan was a disaster at launch. Hellgate London was a failure. Vanguard disappointed you deeply. Darkfall made you weep. The NGE caused the thin veneer that separates this reality with the next to tear away leaving your fragile mind exposed to the shrill, seeping horrors beyond… and now you curl up into a fetal position every time you see a right angle, or a holocron. You know what? Software of this scale is complicated. Games of this scale are complicated. People screw up and sometimes they fail.
But they also learn from their mistakes and succeed. Age of Conan, Vanguard and Darkfall, for all of the bile and venom they generated, are still going. On the other hand, Hellgate is dead and Bill Roper had a large part in that failure… but previously he has also had a part in Blizzard’s success, having worked on the various incarnations of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. So hopefully, we are getting the guy with the talent that led the Blizzard team, with a dose of wisdom and humility from the failure of Flagship. That’s a good mix.
5. You Write a Blog Post Complaining About Complainers – Yeah, it is pretty pathetic, I know… now fight on forum warriors!!
Darkfall: Alliances and War
Since the writing of my last entry, massive battles have broken out across Agon, and with these battles, the formation of alliances are starting to shape the political landscape. In a previous entry, I mentioned the web of guild relations and the possibility of a political map to help everyone understand it. Apparently the Darkfall community has decided to take matters into their own hands and we are starting to see the community try to understand where the lines are drawn.
When you look at the larger map, you can see the workings of what appears to be geopolitical relationships in some areas of the world. Specifically, the 4 sub-continents seems to have certain guilds who are working together in alliance to either fully control certain land masses, or who are bent on conquering them by driving off other guilds.
This very situation manifested itself over the weekend when one of the guilds on Nilfheim (Ice Island) became the target of a massive assault that brought hundreds of players to their city looking to retaliate against them for previous attacks. While the attackers inflicted massive damage to all of the structures, without a formal challenge, the city’s ownership remained intact. The next day a formal challenge was issued, but this time the defenders were able to rally a coalition of their own and managed to hold off onto their city. Needless to say, the server was pushed to the limits and in some cases beyond leading to some people in the 300 man battle to suffer random disconnects.
The Challenge
In order for a city or hamlet to change ownership, and challenge must be issued by one guild to another. When the challenge is issues, it lasts for a period of 6 hours that is divided into 2 stages. During the first stage (4 Hours), the guild that issued the challenge will have its own city or hamlet vulnerable and up for grabs. This adds what can be a substantial risk to picking a fight with another guild as you can rest assured that that they will try to rally their allies to derail the attack at the issuer’s city. Once that stage expires, the challengers will then be able to commence their assault on their target (2 Hours). If at any time during this entire challenge the guild leader who issues the challenge is killed or goes offline, it is considered a loss and the challenge ends. There is also a monetary price that I will touch more on later, but guilds issuing challenges who do not own land will need to pony up a large amount of gold to compensate for the risk factor. If they win they keep the gold, if they lose the enemy keeps it.
My Siege Story
I’ll try to put some of this into context from my first siege experience which happened over the weekend. One of our allies decided they wanted to target a specific enemy city on a nearby remote island because one of its resources was a harbor, and they belonged to another alliance of guilds that they have an unfavorable view towards. The challenge was issued by our ally, and our first order of business was to assist in the defense of their city and protection of the guild leader until we could progress to the attack stage.
We all decided to saddle up and put on our Sunday’s finest gear because after all, this is the type of situation we play for. As a hamlet owner, we found the city to be awe striking in both size and complexity. Upon arrival we saw the walls were lined with people on every side, and this particular city has large cannon towers on each side. I was able to take control of the cannon for a short period of time just to see what it was like, and it reminded me much like sitting in a turret seat in an FPS game. The guild leader who issued the challenge was held up in a very large keep, and the entrance leading into it was blocked by rows of people in the event someone breached the outer wall.
Since we showed up to the city in the tail end of the defense stage, we didn’t really see any action as the enemy was making their own preparations for the likely assault we were getting ready to mount. There were probably upwards of around 200 people on our side inside making preparations, and my PC handled it better than I thought, although there were many in my guild who experienced some crashes and had to turn down settings. I found that I only had to turn down the number of sounds in the audio options, and I was surprised how well the client handled this number of people in such a small geographical area.
As the defense stage came to end, the challenge issuing guild began to hand out siege hammers at their bank to all who could take one. This was one aspect of the monetary costs I mentioned earlier, as these are the main tool for destroying structures at this stage in the game’s life. Buildings in Darkfall can’t be destroyed with normal weapons and magic, only by siege related equipment, so these hammers are the main tool being used since nobody is far enough along to roll out war hulks and large boats.
We soon traveled to the coast nearby and started making our way from island to island. I have to say it was definitely a sight to remember seeing so many people at once moving together as a large mass and some people even brought rafts along to make the trip easier. Unfortunately during this leg of the journey, some of the minor random disconnects that hit us earlier become a bit more frequent. Some of the people who ended up being dropped while in the water logged back in to find themselves back at their bindstone miles away from the battle.
It was at this point that tragedy struck. Among the large group of people who experienced a disconnect, was the challenge issuer. The current rules state that if that person goes offline at any time during the challenge, it counts at a loss. Needless to say there was a lot of anger and frustration on the part of the challenger. The previous 4 hours defending, the organization getting the army together, and the extremely high monetary cost all were wasted. A source from Aventurine tells me they are aware of the issue and looking at ways to make this aspect easier, so we can only hope that some changes to this part of the mechanic are considered to prevent future unintended forfeits.
Despite the upsetting setback, the remainder of us decided to keep going just to see what happens. As I was marveling at the sheer number of people we had, I wondered if it was really going to be necessary. When I finally arrived at the enemy city, I was in amazement at how many people were there waiting for us in a defensive position as the city was located atop a cliff (reports are upwards of 200). We were greeted by the largest volley of magic that I had ever seen, it reminded me of a scene from Star Wars with all the energy flying through the air, no screenshot or words I can say will ever really do it justice.
The enemy alliance had one of its guilds try to attack from behind, but the accidentally tipped their hand too soon and were discovered. With our numbers diminished from the disconnects and all the plasma flying at us from the well defended city, we decided to make the most of the situation and turn our focus to the guild trying to flank us. This led to an initial melee that quickly had them retreating into a chase that went into the ocean and nearby islands. The result was widespread fighting and chaos that left many of them dead, and quickly stripped naked of their belongings.
Apparently hell bent on getting every last one of these guys, someone on my side dropped a raft into the water where literally a dozen guys packed onto it, effectively chasing down and shooting at anyone who was still left alive. After we finished them off, most of the force decided to recall home and reflect on the evenings events. I have to say that despite how much it sucked to lose the challenge, many of us still had an experience that we will remember for a long time to come. Hopefully Aventurine will continue to evaluate and make changes to help streamline the siege process to prevent future incidents from occurring.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
Darkfall: Alliances and War
Since the writing of my last entry, massive battles have broken out across Agon, and with these battles, the formation of alliances are starting to shape the political landscape. In a previous entry, I mentioned the web of guild relations and the possibility of a political map to help everyone understand it. Apparently the Darkfall community has decided to take matters into their own hands and we are starting to see the community try to understand where the lines are drawn.
When you look at the larger map, you can see the workings of what appears to be geopolitical relationships in some areas of the world. Specifically, the 4 sub-continents seems to have certain guilds who are working together in alliance to either fully control certain land masses, or who are bent on conquering them by driving off other guilds.
This very situation manifested itself over the weekend when one of the guilds on Nilfheim (Ice Island) became the target of a massive assault that brought hundreds of players to their city looking to retaliate against them for previous attacks. While the attackers inflicted massive damage to all of the structures, without a formal challenge, the city’s ownership remained intact. The next day a formal challenge was issued, but this time the defenders were able to rally a coalition of their own and managed to hold off onto their city. Needless to say, the server was pushed to the limits and in some cases beyond leading to some people in the 300 man battle to suffer random disconnects.
The Challenge
In order for a city or hamlet to change ownership, and challenge must be issued by one guild to another. When the challenge is issues, it lasts for a period of 6 hours that is divided into 2 stages. During the first stage (4 Hours), the guild that issued the challenge will have its own city or hamlet vulnerable and up for grabs. This adds what can be a substantial risk to picking a fight with another guild as you can rest assured that that they will try to rally their allies to derail the attack at the issuer’s city. Once that stage expires, the challengers will then be able to commence their assault on their target (2 Hours). If at any time during this entire challenge the guild leader who issues the challenge is killed or goes offline, it is considered a loss and the challenge ends. There is also a monetary price that I will touch more on later, but guilds issuing challenges who do not own land will need to pony up a large amount of gold to compensate for the risk factor. If they win they keep the gold, if they lose the enemy keeps it.
My Siege Story
I’ll try to put some of this into context from my first siege experience which happened over the weekend. One of our allies decided they wanted to target a specific enemy city on a nearby remote island because one of its resources was a harbor, and they belonged to another alliance of guilds that they have an unfavorable view towards. The challenge was issued by our ally, and our first order of business was to assist in the defense of their city and protection of the guild leader until we could progress to the attack stage.
We all decided to saddle up and put on our Sunday’s finest gear because after all, this is the type of situation we play for. As a hamlet owner, we found the city to be awe striking in both size and complexity. Upon arrival we saw the walls were lined with people on every side, and this particular city has large cannon towers on each side. I was able to take control of the cannon for a short period of time just to see what it was like, and it reminded me much like sitting in a turret seat in an FPS game. The guild leader who issued the challenge was held up in a very large keep, and the entrance leading into it was blocked by rows of people in the event someone breached the outer wall.
Since we showed up to the city in the tail end of the defense stage, we didn’t really see any action as the enemy was making their own preparations for the likely assault we were getting ready to mount. There were probably upwards of around 200 people on our side inside making preparations, and my PC handled it better than I thought, although there were many in my guild who experienced some crashes and had to turn down settings. I found that I only had to turn down the number of sounds in the audio options, and I was surprised how well the client handled this number of people in such a small geographical area.
As the defense stage came to end, the challenge issuing guild began to hand out siege hammers at their bank to all who could take one. This was one aspect of the monetary costs I mentioned earlier, as these are the main tool for destroying structures at this stage in the game’s life. Buildings in Darkfall can’t be destroyed with normal weapons and magic, only by siege related equipment, so these hammers are the main tool being used since nobody is far enough along to roll out war hulks and large boats.
We soon traveled to the coast nearby and started making our way from island to island. I have to say it was definitely a sight to remember seeing so many people at once moving together as a large mass and some people even brought rafts along to make the trip easier. Unfortunately during this leg of the journey, some of the minor random disconnects that hit us earlier become a bit more frequent. Some of the people who ended up being dropped while in the water logged back in to find themselves back at their bindstone miles away from the battle.
It was at this point that tragedy struck. Among the large group of people who experienced a disconnect, was the challenge issuer. The current rules state that if that person goes offline at any time during the challenge, it counts at a loss. Needless to say there was a lot of anger and frustration on the part of the challenger. The previous 4 hours defending, the organization getting the army together, and the extremely high monetary cost all were wasted. A source from Aventurine tells me they are aware of the issue and looking at ways to make this aspect easier, so we can only hope that some changes to this part of the mechanic are considered to prevent future unintended forfeits.
Despite the upsetting setback, the remainder of us decided to keep going just to see what happens. As I was marveling at the sheer number of people we had, I wondered if it was really going to be necessary. When I finally arrived at the enemy city, I was in amazement at how many people were there waiting for us in a defensive position as the city was located atop a cliff (reports are upwards of 200). We were greeted by the largest volley of magic that I had ever seen, it reminded me of a scene from Star Wars with all the energy flying through the air, no screenshot or words I can say will ever really do it justice.
The enemy alliance had one of its guilds try to attack from behind, but the accidentally tipped their hand too soon and were discovered. With our numbers diminished from the disconnects and all the plasma flying at us from the well defended city, we decided to make the most of the situation and turn our focus to the guild trying to flank us. This led to an initial melee that quickly had them retreating into a chase that went into the ocean and nearby islands. The result was widespread fighting and chaos that left many of them dead, and quickly stripped naked of their belongings.
Apparently hell bent on getting every last one of these guys, someone on my side dropped a raft into the water where literally a dozen guys packed onto it, effectively chasing down and shooting at anyone who was still left alive. After we finished them off, most of the force decided to recall home and reflect on the evenings events. I have to say that despite how much it sucked to lose the challenge, many of us still had an experience that we will remember for a long time to come. Hopefully Aventurine will continue to evaluate and make changes to help streamline the siege process to prevent future incidents from occurring.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
Review: Darkfall Beta
Darkfall Online is a game that is not for everyone. The nature of the game is such that you will either love it or absolutely hate it depending on your playstyle. If you are a casual gamer, someone who does not like harsh PvP in an MMORPG, or you place a heavy emphasis on graphics, there will probably be little here that will appeal to you. On the other hand, if your MMO history involves playing games like Ultima Online or Asheron’s Call, like PvP with consequences, and value gameplay over graphics, there is a good chance that this game will provide you with something you have haven’t seen in a long time.
Darkfall is a lot different than most MMO’s. The game is entirely skill-based, meaning there are no levels, no experience points, and all advancement happens through the raising of various skills through use. The core of the game revolves around open free-for-all PvP with full looting. This means that when you die through PvP or PvE, the entire contents of what you are wearing and carrying can be snatched up by anyone. Now while the game allows you to attack anyone, the games races are divided up into loose teams, but whether you respect those teams is completely up to you.
There are consequences for your actions in Darkfall. Should you choose to attack members of your own team and go “red”, your experience in the game will be different than those who work with their racial team. Unlike other MMOs, Darkfall only allows you one character per server, which means that if you chose to go red, you will not be able to log onto a non-red alt character to get supplies and switch back. It is also worth mentioning that unlike some other RvR based MMOs, there are no language barriers stopping you from saying whatever you want to anyone else.
Character Creation seems fairly simple. I would say its has a bit more options than WoW and WAR, but not even close to AoC. You get to pick your face, hair color, facial hair, and various natural jewelry stuff like rings through your nose. There is no setting for height, and no sliders to sculpt your character’s face and body like Oblivion / AoC. Once you decide on your look, you’ll have to chose a first and last name (yes, the last name is mandatory). Once you are all squared away, you get to chose from 1 of 3 starting cities near your racial capital and you are off to start your journey with nothing except an undroppable starter weapon. I was very surprised by the size of the starter town when I first logged in, I vision of some huts on a dirt road was thrown out the window pretty quickly. I do think they could definitely use some more NPC’s, it looks like there are no non-essential NPC’s at all and it makes the town seems a bit deserted given how big they are.
User Interface
The UI has a learning curve. If you have played other recent MMOs, you can pretty much just forget everything you have seen. The cookie-cutter interface from WoW, EQ2, WAR, AOC is completely gone. I think people are going to struggle with it the first time they sit down and it could turn some people off. Luckily, there is a small tutorial to help you get your bearings. Right clicking the mouse turns the game into UI/Menu mode, much of what you would expect if you pressed the “ESC” key in any other MMO.
When in this mode, you will see that this is the only time you have a mouse cursor on your screen. This means when you are in play mode, there is no clicking on your hotbar to active abilities, you just press the numerically assigned button on your keyboard. The UI is completely customizable as you can move and resize any window to fit your personal preference. The in-game help pretty much tells you that controls will feel better to FPS players over MMO players. The “F” key is the default use button and works just like it would in Call of Duty, as does spacebar with jumping, and “C” for crouching. The “R” key draws your weapon, and will put you into 3rd person if you have a melee weapon equipped.
You can’t loot a target with your weapon drawn. When monster or players die, they leave a tombstone which can be looted by pressing the use key. When the loot box open, this will put you into UI mode, so you will not be able to move or do anything. You also need to open your backpack (Default “B” button) and manually drag and drop the items from their corpse to your bag one at a time. This will definitely be perceived by many as clunky, but at the same time there is a case to be made by others that looting should not be fast to prevent people from cleaning out bodies quickly in the middle of a heated battle. After playing for a while, I think it has grown on me a lot because the time associated with cleaning someone out adds a risk when you are in a heated situation.
My main beef with UI is the chat box. The chat box has multiple tabs that correspond to the different channels, such as group, clan, local, tells, and alliance. The problem with this is that it is becomes easy to miss messages. Let’s say you are in your group chat tab running around looking for trouble, and you run across another player and kill them. Unfortunately, that player asked if he could join you and wanted to provide you with some valuable information, but you missed it because his text was under the local tab that you were not looking at because you were talking in group. Unless you are paying careful attention to the various tabs, you are bound to miss a tell or message in another channel. You can however click and drag those tabs out to create new chat windows for that channel. This also means that having a different chat box for each channel can start to clutter up your screen. I think the chat would be better served with multiple channels in the same tab, and leaving it up to the user to decide which channels they want to see in each tab. Aventurine has stated that further revamping of chat is already in the works and will arrive shortly, so there is a good chance that this will be less of an issue very soon.
The World
The environment looks very nice. The sky looks great, and you can see every branch on every tree swaying in the wind. The game runs very smooth to me with everything cranked, but I have a relatively powerful machine. The graphics are by no means cutting-edge, but considering you are getting a zoneless and seamless world with no loading screens, it looks quite well. The world size does seem massive, and I was shocked to see how little I moved on the world map after walking for a few minutes. Traveling from my starter town to my neighboring enemy’s starter area can take me anywhere from 25-45 minutes on foot depending on my route and how much stamina I burn sprinting. I think it is probably bigger than Asheron’s Call.
There are lots of interesting and hidden places scattered around the world that will appeal to explorer types. I have seen underground cities, giant tree top villages, mountain top fortresses, hidden treasure boxes, and ancient ruins just to name a few. My beef as far as the overworld goes is the scarcity of monsters. Since there are no experience points in Darkfall, monster serve the critical role as a source of items, gold, and materials. This shortage not only makes it difficult to getting these resources, but it makes the world seem a bit devoid of life at times.
Characters and Animations
Chances are that if you are a fan of this game, it isn’t because it is a graphical behemoth. This is one of the areas that people who are sticklers for visuals may be disappointed. The character models are a mixed bag. There are times when I like them, and times were I think they could be a bit better. Graphically, they will come in a distance behind some of the newer MMO’s on the market. I do however think some of the armor models make them look a lot better. When you wear heavier armor, you can see the glare of the light reflecting on some of the metallic pieces, which is a nice touch. It does vary from race to race, I hear a lot of opinions from various people who either like or dislike a certain race’s model design.
The character animations are another issue that detract a little from the game’s visuals. Some of the various animations when characters run around seem a bit off. I think it is something that most people will notice fairly quickly after watching some of the video and in their first hours in the game. Since you are in a first-person view for most of the game, you won’t be looking at your character nearly as much as other games that have you locked in the 3rd person. While they can take some getting used to, they are by no means a game breaker to me and most of the target audience of the game. If they decided to review and rework the animations down the road, I don’t think many would complain, but I think most agree that their time is better spent on other things right now.
Combat
There are 3 major different combat types in Darkfall; Melee, Archery, and Magic. This will most likely be one of the more hotly-contested aspects of the game, where most people will either love it or hate it. Unlike other MMOs, Darkfall’s combat plays out more like a first-person shooter than a traditional MMO. This means there is no tab targeting, your attacks need to be manually aimed, and your attacks can also be dodged. It is also worth mentioning that the different races all vary in size, which means that certain larger races (Ork / Mahirim) may have a larger hitbox than some of the shorter races (Alfar / Dwarf). I have heard some people freak out about this issue making different races having advantages, but as someone who plays a Mahirim, it was not much of an issue for me personally. I am sure others will disagree on this point, but I would just suggest people play what they like and you will adapt.
Stamina also plays a very critical role in combat because when your stamina is depleted, you will not be able to attack or put up much of a defense. Stamina management will be vital to most of your fights, and in most cases, running out of stamina can be as equally devastating as running out of life. Darkfall also seems to recognize back attacks, and rewards them with doing an increased amount of damage. This can make turning your back and fleeing from someone have some risk if the other person is able to hit your back, especially with arrows. To combine these points, some people will find that melee combat will often have some people sprinting the entire time trying to get behind behind their targets or to make themselves harder to hit. While it can be annoying sometimes to fight someone doing this, these people tend to burn themselves out faster, but the use of this tactic will no doubt frustrate some players.
Each of the 3 combat types have skills associated with using them. When that skill reaches 25, new attacks will open up to be purchased. These new attacks initially after purchase do not seem to show a noticeable increase in damage, but after skilling them up a bit, they start to show more of a return. Some players might be disappointed to find that there are not many “special” attacks compared other MMOs for the melee and archery types where you may be used to having a hotbar full of different abilities. As a fan of Asheron’s Call which had literally no abilities, it doesn’t bother me as much because the combat has more freedom than other MMOs by combat having no autolocking hits, but it definitely will be an issue to some players. Hopefully as the game progresses, they will introduce a some more skills down the road to beef up the amount of tools non-magic players have at their disposal.
Melee
This is the most basic forum of combat in the game and most likely the path most will follow, especially at the very start of the game because it is inexpensive. While melee is a bit easier on your purse, it has the obvious drawback of limited range. Different weapons types do however offer varying range, such as polearms reaching farther than daggers.
When your melee weapon is drawn, you will be pulled out into a 3rd-person viewpoint. Even if this view, your visibility behind your character is minimal. This means sneaking up behind people is a legitimate tactic as opposed to other MMOs where you can spin the camera to see behind you. I can testify first hand that this works quite well, which is good because this game has no “stealth” skills like other MMOs that can make you go invisible. The only time in Darkfall where you can spin the camera at your whim is while resting.
Pressing “T” will toggle your attacks between a horizontal slash and a vertical chop. While both of these do exactly the same damage, certain situations may find one over the other as more practical. The horizontal slash makes it easier to connect with your targets due to the wide cone of damage, but in crowded combat, this could also have you striking your allies for damage because the game has friendly fire. A vertical chop while having a narrow cone of damage, works better in crowded situations because it minimizes the chance of striking nearby allies in a frantic battle.
Archery
Firing a bow in Darkfall requires some degree of skill when it comes to aiming your shot. When you fire an arrow, it will arc through the air as opposed to traveling in a straight line like a bullet. This means that the archer will have to compensate for this by aiming the crosshair above his target depending on how far away it is. Pressing and holding your left mouse button will make your character load an arrow, which can be held as long as you continue to hold down the button. This allows you to wait for the moment of your choosing to take your shot.
The upside to archery, besides the range advantage, is that arrows can be very hard to dodge if the shooter has good aim because of the speed they travel towards through the air. The downside to archery is that you can only hit one target at a time, and that arrows are not free. This can make it hard for new and financially struggling players to keep up with the price of obtaining arrows on a regular basis, although many of the starting mobs are known to drop small quantities. Archery only skills up when you shoot an arrow, and since they are not recoverable once fired, raising this skill can end up costing you.
Magic
Magic is broken up into many schools, each with their own spells. In addition to skilling up each school of magic, each spell acts as its own skill. The more you cast a spell, the better you will become with it. Higher skilled spells will evolve and start to travel faster through the air, do more damage, or even shoot multiple projectiles.
Like archery, firing spells at your enemy will require some degree of coordination because they need to be manually aimed. The good news is that magic is a lot easier to aim than your bow because your spells will travel in a straight line exactly to where your crosshair is pointed without arcing. In addition to the ease of aiming and obvious range advantages, many of Darkfall spells have splash damage that can hit a target if your shot is close enough, or even hit multiple targets.
Magic does come with its disadvantages as well. Most of the spells in the game require a reagent or component to cast with the exception of the starter spells. This means the life of a mage can be costly, and skilling up spells and school with components can be a hard road. As such, starting the game as a pure mage right out of the gate will come off as extremely difficult. Spells are also easier to dodge than arrows at range because they are easier to spot and generally travel slower through the air. Magic also has a tendency to fizzle more when you are wearing heavier armor, but there is an armored magic casting skill that helps offset it a little if you are able to skill it up.
Those who delve deep into magic will also be forced later on to make decisions about which schools to pursue. New spells and schools of magic are unlocked as you progress through prerequisite school, but some restrictions start to show up down the road. Darkfall does not let you specialize in schools of magic that are polar opposites, such as Fire and Water, Earth and Air. You can have 2 out of the 4 elements, as long as they don’t clash with each other, but your end game plans will need to be thought out to avoid training in the wrong areas.
Finish Him!
Probably one of my favorite aspects of PvP combat that makes Darkfall unique is the incapacitation of a player when they reach zero life (excluding the rare and freakish decapitation). This starts a 60 second or so window where you get to decide the fate of the fallen player, or have some choice words with them. There are no revive spells in Darkfall, but when someone is in this state, anyone can help them back up without need of any spell or item. If the person lays there for too long, they will bleed to death and expire. The option is also your to deliver the final blow to send the fallen player back to their bind point naked, and ironically this is called the “Gank” skill by the game. Incapacitated players will yell out “HELP ME!” when reaching zero life, which can be heard from quite a distance away.
Quests
Questing in Darkfall at this point doesn’t seem to play as much a role than it does in some of the other more recent MMOs. Considering that there are no experience points, quests seem to be a way to get your hands on some items or cash. Finding the quest givers is not as easy also from recent games. There are no floating icons over NPCs like in WoW, WAR, and AoC. Some vendor NPCs simply will have a quest tab on their menu, but you won’t know until you talk to them.
The quests themselves are really nothing special in all honesty. Most of them consist of the same basic stuff we have seen the last few years where you are sent to either kill a certain amount of a monster, or collect some items from monsters, or kill the monsters in a certain time frame. It isn’t to say they aren’t rewarding to do, but they are just as uninspiring as any other MMO, unless I just haven’t found the good ones yet.
PvE
PvE in Darkfall is a bit different than other MMOs in a few ways. For starters, since there are no levels or a con system, you never really know just how powerful a monster (or player) is until you fight it. Luckily, if you find yourself getting in a bit over your head, it is not too hard to escape the aggro range by sprinting away. Since there are also no experience points, your motivation for engaging in this part of the game will be for monetary gain and equipment. Monsters for the most part seem to drop the items you see them wearing or using in combat, so if a goblin is shooting you with a bow, you can assume that it will be on his body after you beat him. That being said, the monster AI is a step up from other games. Monsters with bows will try to kite you sometimes, others call for help, and some strafe around you to avoid being hit.
There is no kill stealing or tagging system for monsters either. This means anyone can loot anything regardless of who hit it first, last, or did the most damage. While this can sometimes be problematic depending on who is near you, most of the time people seemed to have some degree of respect for who did the dirty work. Another interesting thing though about looting in general, is that multiple people can loot the same target at the same time. I have had situations where me and a friend were both grabbing items out of the loot bag at the same time, which can lead to some humorous situations with people frantically trying to identify and grab the stuff they want before the other guy. Remember that if you are defeated in PvE with people nearby, there is nothing from stopping another player from walking up to you while incapacitated and opting to finish you off and cleaning you out. I can say from personal experience that I have never seen this happen, but I will admit to seeing someone bleed out and getting there too late to save them, then sneakily rummaging through their bag to capitalize on their misfortune.
You also need to be careful not to accidentally damage strangers, or you run the risk of going “rouge” status for a short time, which allows other players to attack you without any alignment penalty for a short time. If 2 players are meleeing the same monster, it can be easier than you think for someone to get accidentally hit by a wild swing, but most of the time other people were good sports about it. There are those who will try to capitalize on it though; I remember a circumstance where I saw one of my guildmates being chased by someone he accidentally hit. Magic users need to be extra careful as well because since most spells have splash damage, it can be very easy to hit both the monster and another player trying to melee the same target.
Alignment System
The alignment system is the main mechanic that determines if you are in good standing or bad standing (red) with members of your own racial pairing. The basic theory is that killing someone who in your racial pairing (who isn’t red) will result in a loss of alignment and bring you closer to being red, while killing the natural enemies of your race and red players will increase your standing. The value of a negative hit is much higher than that of a positive one, so it will take several enemy kills to negate the effects of a single friendly kill. If you only hit another player, will be rogue flagged for a short period of time, in which case you can be killed by friendly targets as a means of self-defense. Your alignment is displayed as the bottom meter in the window where your life, stamina, and mana are located.
Having a bad alignment and going red does have some consequences. Besides the obvious of being a target to everyone in the game, your own racial towns will not welcome you and you will be attacked by the guard towers. You will also not be allowed to bind at the same bindstone as normal players, which makes sense because since the bindstones are in town, you would be attacked immediately. Upon going red, you will be automatically bound to remote bindstones in the wilderness where there is little in the ways of merchants and banks in many cases.
The alignment system has its flaws. For starters, it can be easy to flag other players as rogue status by deliberately trying to place yourself in front of their attacks. This can lead to you getting attacked by what would be otherwise friendly players, who then try to capitalize on your rogue status. This means that when you are in a crowded PvE area with strangers, you need to be very careful about your surroundings. Another personal beef I have is that players of an enemy race have their names colored blue, even though they are technically your enemy. The game displays them as blue because their alignment is good in the context of their race. This can lead to confusion if you see another player at a distance and can’t quite make out what race they may be. I think it would make more sense to display their names in red naturally since you will be rewarded for killing them.
Full Loot
This is one aspect of the game that I think tends to scare away or concern players who have never played in this type of environment, but may be considering it. I’m sure most people following the game know and understand that Darkfall has full loot upon death, which means that everything on your body is lootable with the exception of your starter weapons, but does not include what you may have banked. Every player starts with a single starter weapon which can always be traded for a different one for a small fee of 20 gold. For the price of 100 gold, you can secure a 2nd weapon, and for 1000 gold you can secure a 3rd. Most players will eventually have 3, which will probably consist of a melee weapon, a wand (needed to cast magic), and a bow (no starter arrows). So you will never be without a weapon no matter what happens.
Now I am not going to sugar-coat it, catching a beatdown and awaking up at the bindstone in your underwear sucks, and everyone is going to have days where it happens. On the flip side, there is definitely something to be said about bending down over a fallen opponent and seeing a pile of treasure. The first time you do this, it will definitely bring a smile to your face. If full loot scares you, consider the nature of the game. This is not an item-based game, and while items do help a good bit, they are expendable and replaceable. Remember that the core of your strength in Darkfall is your skills, and nobody can ever take that from you. I think people who are used to raiding weeks for epic purple gear might have a hard time understanding this, but hopefully this should give you some perspective.
Summary
Darkfall is still pretty rough around the edges and could use some polish in many areas. Given all of the hype and hysteria surrounding the game, it would be easy to be disappointed if you go into it with unrealistic expectations. The game is being developed by Aventurine, an Indy developer that has made an MMO with a fraction of the manpower, and at a fraction of the price compared to the industry leaders. I personally think the game would have benefited a bit by prolonging the release for at least another month or so, and some players who demand polish may be better off waiting for a little bit before jumping in especially with access being limited initially.
That being said, Aventurine has created the solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time, and I am sure many players will be more than happy to jump into Darkfall at the ground level despite its issues. Anyone who has seen their patches can attest to the fact that they are frequent and robust. I have no doubt that as time goes on, Darkfall will further develop into an interesting and needed alternative to the theme-park model that has been beaten to death in the last few years.
If you are a fan of harsh free-for-all PvP, full looting, clan warfare, and non-linear gameplay, Darkfall might be just the sort of thing you have been looking for. If you are a casual gamer, someone who enjoys a linear style gameplay, or looking for a graphically intense experience, this game might not be for you. I also think to fully appreciate the game, playing with a group of friends or being in a clan will expose you to more of what the game has to offer. I don’t think it was ever intended to have mass appeal, but more to cater to a niche of PvP players who are looking for something more than what is out there now, and I think in that respect it will succeed.
If you have any questions about anything I have said or not said, leave a comment and I will do my best to answer.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
Review: Darkfall Beta
Darkfall Online is a game that is not for everyone. The nature of the game is such that you will either love it or absolutely hate it depending on your playstyle. If you are a casual gamer, someone who does not like harsh PvP in an MMORPG, or you place a heavy emphasis on graphics, there will probably be little here that will appeal to you. On the other hand, if your MMO history involves playing games like Ultima Online or Asheron’s Call, like PvP with consequences, and value gameplay over graphics, there is a good chance that this game will provide you with something you have haven’t seen in a long time.
Darkfall is a lot different than most MMO’s. The game is entirely skill-based, meaning there are no levels, no experience points, and all advancement happens through the raising of various skills through use. The core of the game revolves around open free-for-all PvP with full looting. This means that when you die through PvP or PvE, the entire contents of what you are wearing and carrying can be snatched up by anyone. Now while the game allows you to attack anyone, the games races are divided up into loose teams, but whether you respect those teams is completely up to you.
There are consequences for your actions in Darkfall. Should you choose to attack members of your own team and go “red”, your experience in the game will be different than those who work with their racial team. Unlike other MMOs, Darkfall only allows you one character per server, which means that if you chose to go red, you will not be able to log onto a non-red alt character to get supplies and switch back. It is also worth mentioning that unlike some other RvR based MMOs, there are no language barriers stopping you from saying whatever you want to anyone else.
Character Creation seems fairly simple. I would say its has a bit more options than WoW and WAR, but not even close to AoC. You get to pick your face, hair color, facial hair, and various natural jewelry stuff like rings through your nose. There is no setting for height, and no sliders to sculpt your character’s face and body like Oblivion / AoC. Once you decide on your look, you’ll have to chose a first and last name (yes, the last name is mandatory). Once you are all squared away, you get to chose from 1 of 3 starting cities near your racial capital and you are off to start your journey with nothing except an undroppable starter weapon. I was very surprised by the size of the starter town when I first logged in, I vision of some huts on a dirt road was thrown out the window pretty quickly. I do think they could definitely use some more NPC’s, it looks like there are no non-essential NPC’s at all and it makes the town seems a bit deserted given how big they are.
User Interface
The UI has a learning curve. If you have played other recent MMOs, you can pretty much just forget everything you have seen. The cookie-cutter interface from WoW, EQ2, WAR, AOC is completely gone. I think people are going to struggle with it the first time they sit down and it could turn some people off. Luckily, there is a small tutorial to help you get your bearings. Right clicking the mouse turns the game into UI/Menu mode, much of what you would expect if you pressed the “ESC” key in any other MMO.
When in this mode, you will see that this is the only time you have a mouse cursor on your screen. This means when you are in play mode, there is no clicking on your hotbar to active abilities, you just press the numerically assigned button on your keyboard. The UI is completely customizable as you can move and resize any window to fit your personal preference. The in-game help pretty much tells you that controls will feel better to FPS players over MMO players. The “F” key is the default use button and works just like it would in Call of Duty, as does spacebar with jumping, and “C” for crouching. The “R” key draws your weapon, and will put you into 3rd person if you have a melee weapon equipped.
You can’t loot a target with your weapon drawn. When monster or players die, they leave a tombstone which can be looted by pressing the use key. When the loot box open, this will put you into UI mode, so you will not be able to move or do anything. You also need to open your backpack (Default “B” button) and manually drag and drop the items from their corpse to your bag one at a time. This will definitely be perceived by many as clunky, but at the same time there is a case to be made by others that looting should not be fast to prevent people from cleaning out bodies quickly in the middle of a heated battle. After playing for a while, I think it has grown on me a lot because the time associated with cleaning someone out adds a risk when you are in a heated situation.
My main beef with UI is the chat box. The chat box has multiple tabs that correspond to the different channels, such as group, clan, local, tells, and alliance. The problem with this is that it is becomes easy to miss messages. Let’s say you are in your group chat tab running around looking for trouble, and you run across another player and kill them. Unfortunately, that player asked if he could join you and wanted to provide you with some valuable information, but you missed it because his text was under the local tab that you were not looking at because you were talking in group. Unless you are paying careful attention to the various tabs, you are bound to miss a tell or message in another channel. You can however click and drag those tabs out to create new chat windows for that channel. This also means that having a different chat box for each channel can start to clutter up your screen. I think the chat would be better served with multiple channels in the same tab, and leaving it up to the user to decide which channels they want to see in each tab. Aventurine has stated that further revamping of chat is already in the works and will arrive shortly, so there is a good chance that this will be less of an issue very soon.
The World
The environment looks very nice. The sky looks great, and you can see every branch on every tree swaying in the wind. The game runs very smooth to me with everything cranked, but I have a relatively powerful machine. The graphics are by no means cutting-edge, but considering you are getting a zoneless and seamless world with no loading screens, it looks quite well. The world size does seem massive, and I was shocked to see how little I moved on the world map after walking for a few minutes. Traveling from my starter town to my neighboring enemy’s starter area can take me anywhere from 25-45 minutes on foot depending on my route and how much stamina I burn sprinting. I think it is probably bigger than Asheron’s Call.
There are lots of interesting and hidden places scattered around the world that will appeal to explorer types. I have seen underground cities, giant tree top villages, mountain top fortresses, hidden treasure boxes, and ancient ruins just to name a few. My beef as far as the overworld goes is the scarcity of monsters. Since there are no experience points in Darkfall, monster serve the critical role as a source of items, gold, and materials. This shortage not only makes it difficult to getting these resources, but it makes the world seem a bit devoid of life at times.
Characters and Animations
Chances are that if you are a fan of this game, it isn’t because it is a graphical behemoth. This is one of the areas that people who are sticklers for visuals may be disappointed. The character models are a mixed bag. There are times when I like them, and times were I think they could be a bit better. Graphically, they will come in a distance behind some of the newer MMO’s on the market. I do however think some of the armor models make them look a lot better. When you wear heavier armor, you can see the glare of the light reflecting on some of the metallic pieces, which is a nice touch. It does vary from race to race, I hear a lot of opinions from various people who either like or dislike a certain race’s model design.
The character animations are another issue that detract a little from the game’s visuals. Some of the various animations when characters run around seem a bit off. I think it is something that most people will notice fairly quickly after watching some of the video and in their first hours in the game. Since you are in a first-person view for most of the game, you won’t be looking at your character nearly as much as other games that have you locked in the 3rd person. While they can take some getting used to, they are by no means a game breaker to me and most of the target audience of the game. If they decided to review and rework the animations down the road, I don’t think many would complain, but I think most agree that their time is better spent on other things right now.
Combat
There are 3 major different combat types in Darkfall; Melee, Archery, and Magic. This will most likely be one of the more hotly-contested aspects of the game, where most people will either love it or hate it. Unlike other MMOs, Darkfall’s combat plays out more like a first-person shooter than a traditional MMO. This means there is no tab targeting, your attacks need to be manually aimed, and your attacks can also be dodged. It is also worth mentioning that the different races all vary in size, which means that certain larger races (Ork / Mahirim) may have a larger hitbox than some of the shorter races (Alfar / Dwarf). I have heard some people freak out about this issue making different races having advantages, but as someone who plays a Mahirim, it was not much of an issue for me personally. I am sure others will disagree on this point, but I would just suggest people play what they like and you will adapt.
Stamina also plays a very critical role in combat because when your stamina is depleted, you will not be able to attack or put up much of a defense. Stamina management will be vital to most of your fights, and in most cases, running out of stamina can be as equally devastating as running out of life. Darkfall also seems to recognize back attacks, and rewards them with doing an increased amount of damage. This can make turning your back and fleeing from someone have some risk if the other person is able to hit your back, especially with arrows. To combine these points, some people will find that melee combat will often have some people sprinting the entire time trying to get behind behind their targets or to make themselves harder to hit. While it can be annoying sometimes to fight someone doing this, these people tend to burn themselves out faster, but the use of this tactic will no doubt frustrate some players.
Each of the 3 combat types have skills associated with using them. When that skill reaches 25, new attacks will open up to be purchased. These new attacks initially after purchase do not seem to show a noticeable increase in damage, but after skilling them up a bit, they start to show more of a return. Some players might be disappointed to find that there are not many “special” attacks compared other MMOs for the melee and archery types where you may be used to having a hotbar full of different abilities. As a fan of Asheron’s Call which had literally no abilities, it doesn’t bother me as much because the combat has more freedom than other MMOs by combat having no autolocking hits, but it definitely will be an issue to some players. Hopefully as the game progresses, they will introduce a some more skills down the road to beef up the amount of tools non-magic players have at their disposal.
Melee
This is the most basic forum of combat in the game and most likely the path most will follow, especially at the very start of the game because it is inexpensive. While melee is a bit easier on your purse, it has the obvious drawback of limited range. Different weapons types do however offer varying range, such as polearms reaching farther than daggers.
When your melee weapon is drawn, you will be pulled out into a 3rd-person viewpoint. Even if this view, your visibility behind your character is minimal. This means sneaking up behind people is a legitimate tactic as opposed to other MMOs where you can spin the camera to see behind you. I can testify first hand that this works quite well, which is good because this game has no “stealth” skills like other MMOs that can make you go invisible. The only time in Darkfall where you can spin the camera at your whim is while resting.
Pressing “T” will toggle your attacks between a horizontal slash and a vertical chop. While both of these do exactly the same damage, certain situations may find one over the other as more practical. The horizontal slash makes it easier to connect with your targets due to the wide cone of damage, but in crowded combat, this could also have you striking your allies for damage because the game has friendly fire. A vertical chop while having a narrow cone of damage, works better in crowded situations because it minimizes the chance of striking nearby allies in a frantic battle.
Archery
Firing a bow in Darkfall requires some degree of skill when it comes to aiming your shot. When you fire an arrow, it will arc through the air as opposed to traveling in a straight line like a bullet. This means that the archer will have to compensate for this by aiming the crosshair above his target depending on how far away it is. Pressing and holding your left mouse button will make your character load an arrow, which can be held as long as you continue to hold down the button. This allows you to wait for the moment of your choosing to take your shot.
The upside to archery, besides the range advantage, is that arrows can be very hard to dodge if the shooter has good aim because of the speed they travel towards through the air. The downside to archery is that you can only hit one target at a time, and that arrows are not free. This can make it hard for new and financially struggling players to keep up with the price of obtaining arrows on a regular basis, although many of the starting mobs are known to drop small quantities. Archery only skills up when you shoot an arrow, and since they are not recoverable once fired, raising this skill can end up costing you.
Magic
Magic is broken up into many schools, each with their own spells. In addition to skilling up each school of magic, each spell acts as its own skill. The more you cast a spell, the better you will become with it. Higher skilled spells will evolve and start to travel faster through the air, do more damage, or even shoot multiple projectiles.
Like archery, firing spells at your enemy will require some degree of coordination because they need to be manually aimed. The good news is that magic is a lot easier to aim than your bow because your spells will travel in a straight line exactly to where your crosshair is pointed without arcing. In addition to the ease of aiming and obvious range advantages, many of Darkfall spells have splash damage that can hit a target if your shot is close enough, or even hit multiple targets.
Magic does come with its disadvantages as well. Most of the spells in the game require a reagent or component to cast with the exception of the starter spells. This means the life of a mage can be costly, and skilling up spells and school with components can be a hard road. As such, starting the game as a pure mage right out of the gate will come off as extremely difficult. Spells are also easier to dodge than arrows at range because they are easier to spot and generally travel slower through the air. Magic also has a tendency to fizzle more when you are wearing heavier armor, but there is an armored magic casting skill that helps offset it a little if you are able to skill it up.
Those who delve deep into magic will also be forced later on to make decisions about which schools to pursue. New spells and schools of magic are unlocked as you progress through prerequisite school, but some restrictions start to show up down the road. Darkfall does not let you specialize in schools of magic that are polar opposites, such as Fire and Water, Earth and Air. You can have 2 out of the 4 elements, as long as they don’t clash with each other, but your end game plans will need to be thought out to avoid training in the wrong areas.
Finish Him!
Probably one of my favorite aspects of PvP combat that makes Darkfall unique is the incapacitation of a player when they reach zero life (excluding the rare and freakish decapitation). This starts a 60 second or so window where you get to decide the fate of the fallen player, or have some choice words with them. There are no revive spells in Darkfall, but when someone is in this state, anyone can help them back up without need of any spell or item. If the person lays there for too long, they will bleed to death and expire. The option is also your to deliver the final blow to send the fallen player back to their bind point naked, and ironically this is called the “Gank” skill by the game. Incapacitated players will yell out “HELP ME!” when reaching zero life, which can be heard from quite a distance away.
Quests
Questing in Darkfall at this point doesn’t seem to play as much a role than it does in some of the other more recent MMOs. Considering that there are no experience points, quests seem to be a way to get your hands on some items or cash. Finding the quest givers is not as easy also from recent games. There are no floating icons over NPCs like in WoW, WAR, and AoC. Some vendor NPCs simply will have a quest tab on their menu, but you won’t know until you talk to them.
The quests themselves are really nothing special in all honesty. Most of them consist of the same basic stuff we have seen the last few years where you are sent to either kill a certain amount of a monster, or collect some items from monsters, or kill the monsters in a certain time frame. It isn’t to say they aren’t rewarding to do, but they are just as uninspiring as any other MMO, unless I just haven’t found the good ones yet.
PvE
PvE in Darkfall is a bit different than other MMOs in a few ways. For starters, since there are no levels or a con system, you never really know just how powerful a monster (or player) is until you fight it. Luckily, if you find yourself getting in a bit over your head, it is not too hard to escape the aggro range by sprinting away. Since there are also no experience points, your motivation for engaging in this part of the game will be for monetary gain and equipment. Monsters for the most part seem to drop the items you see them wearing or using in combat, so if a goblin is shooting you with a bow, you can assume that it will be on his body after you beat him. That being said, the monster AI is a step up from other games. Monsters with bows will try to kite you sometimes, others call for help, and some strafe around you to avoid being hit.
There is no kill stealing or tagging system for monsters either. This means anyone can loot anything regardless of who hit it first, last, or did the most damage. While this can sometimes be problematic depending on who is near you, most of the time people seemed to have some degree of respect for who did the dirty work. Another interesting thing though about looting in general, is that multiple people can loot the same target at the same time. I have had situations where me and a friend were both grabbing items out of the loot bag at the same time, which can lead to some humorous situations with people frantically trying to identify and grab the stuff they want before the other guy. Remember that if you are defeated in PvE with people nearby, there is nothing from stopping another player from walking up to you while incapacitated and opting to finish you off and cleaning you out. I can say from personal experience that I have never seen this happen, but I will admit to seeing someone bleed out and getting there too late to save them, then sneakily rummaging through their bag to capitalize on their misfortune.
You also need to be careful not to accidentally damage strangers, or you run the risk of going “rouge” status for a short time, which allows other players to attack you without any alignment penalty for a short time. If 2 players are meleeing the same monster, it can be easier than you think for someone to get accidentally hit by a wild swing, but most of the time other people were good sports about it. There are those who will try to capitalize on it though; I remember a circumstance where I saw one of my guildmates being chased by someone he accidentally hit. Magic users need to be extra careful as well because since most spells have splash damage, it can be very easy to hit both the monster and another player trying to melee the same target.
Alignment System
The alignment system is the main mechanic that determines if you are in good standing or bad standing (red) with members of your own racial pairing. The basic theory is that killing someone who in your racial pairing (who isn’t red) will result in a loss of alignment and bring you closer to being red, while killing the natural enemies of your race and red players will increase your standing. The value of a negative hit is much higher than that of a positive one, so it will take several enemy kills to negate the effects of a single friendly kill. If you only hit another player, will be rogue flagged for a short period of time, in which case you can be killed by friendly targets as a means of self-defense. Your alignment is displayed as the bottom meter in the window where your life, stamina, and mana are located.
Having a bad alignment and going red does have some consequences. Besides the obvious of being a target to everyone in the game, your own racial towns will not welcome you and you will be attacked by the guard towers. You will also not be allowed to bind at the same bindstone as normal players, which makes sense because since the bindstones are in town, you would be attacked immediately. Upon going red, you will be automatically bound to remote bindstones in the wilderness where there is little in the ways of merchants and banks in many cases.
The alignment system has its flaws. For starters, it can be easy to flag other players as rogue status by deliberately trying to place yourself in front of their attacks. This can lead to you getting attacked by what would be otherwise friendly players, who then try to capitalize on your rogue status. This means that when you are in a crowded PvE area with strangers, you need to be very careful about your surroundings. Another personal beef I have is that players of an enemy race have their names colored blue, even though they are technically your enemy. The game displays them as blue because their alignment is good in the context of their race. This can lead to confusion if you see another player at a distance and can’t quite make out what race they may be. I think it would make more sense to display their names in red naturally since you will be rewarded for killing them.
Full Loot
This is one aspect of the game that I think tends to scare away or concern players who have never played in this type of environment, but may be considering it. I’m sure most people following the game know and understand that Darkfall has full loot upon death, which means that everything on your body is lootable with the exception of your starter weapons, but does not include what you may have banked. Every player starts with a single starter weapon which can always be traded for a different one for a small fee of 20 gold. For the price of 100 gold, you can secure a 2nd weapon, and for 1000 gold you can secure a 3rd. Most players will eventually have 3, which will probably consist of a melee weapon, a wand (needed to cast magic), and a bow (no starter arrows). So you will never be without a weapon no matter what happens.
Now I am not going to sugar-coat it, catching a beatdown and awaking up at the bindstone in your underwear sucks, and everyone is going to have days where it happens. On the flip side, there is definitely something to be said about bending down over a fallen opponent and seeing a pile of treasure. The first time you do this, it will definitely bring a smile to your face. If full loot scares you, consider the nature of the game. This is not an item-based game, and while items do help a good bit, they are expendable and replaceable. Remember that the core of your strength in Darkfall is your skills, and nobody can ever take that from you. I think people who are used to raiding weeks for epic purple gear might have a hard time understanding this, but hopefully this should give you some perspective.
Summary
Darkfall is still pretty rough around the edges and could use some polish in many areas. Given all of the hype and hysteria surrounding the game, it would be easy to be disappointed if you go into it with unrealistic expectations. The game is being developed by Aventurine, an Indy developer that has made an MMO with a fraction of the manpower, and at a fraction of the price compared to the industry leaders. I personally think the game would have benefited a bit by prolonging the release for at least another month or so, and some players who demand polish may be better off waiting for a little bit before jumping in especially with access being limited initially.
That being said, Aventurine has created the solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time, and I am sure many players will be more than happy to jump into Darkfall at the ground level despite its issues. Anyone who has seen their patches can attest to the fact that they are frequent and robust. I have no doubt that as time goes on, Darkfall will further develop into an interesting and needed alternative to the theme-park model that has been beaten to death in the last few years.
If you are a fan of harsh free-for-all PvP, full looting, clan warfare, and non-linear gameplay, Darkfall might be just the sort of thing you have been looking for. If you are a casual gamer, someone who enjoys a linear style gameplay, or looking for a graphically intense experience, this game might not be for you. I also think to fully appreciate the game, playing with a group of friends or being in a clan will expose you to more of what the game has to offer. I don’t think it was ever intended to have mass appeal, but more to cater to a niche of PvP players who are looking for something more than what is out there now, and I think in that respect it will succeed.
If you have any questions about anything I have said or not said, leave a comment and I will do my best to answer.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
DAOC Origins: 6 Months of Silence
DAOC Origins: 6 Months of Silence
A long time ago old Dark Age of Camelot fans were rejoicing when Mythic announced that they were going to be releasing their “Origins” server. Many of the game’s original fans had become disenchanted with DAOC after the release of some controversial expansion packs, and fans had been longing to relive that original DAOC experience.
On June 2nd, 2008, Mythic announced on the Camelot Herald the Origins project and revealed their plan:
“This server is designed to return DAOC to the great game experience it was in 2001/2002, while also applying wisdom from the lessons we have learned since then. DAOC is still a great game, but this server has its own appeal that we ‘old school’ players really enjoyed, and our goal is to get back to that while also continuing to support the other rulesets. Origins will not exactly replicate the game as it was is 2001; we are keeping as a part of server the ‘best features’ we have put into the game since launch, such as housing, horses, the market explorer, UI changes (to name only a few) and many of the improved systems introduced over the years.”
The announcement also goes on to lay out their timeframe for the project:
“The most common question continues to be, “Is this really going to happen?”
Origins has been in development for a couple of months now. We have been working with our Team Leads (as part of the Team Lead program) to work through the various gameplay details, ideas, and issues, while also collecting and reading your feedback. Our schedule requires around four to five months of development. This means that since the server has been in development for two months already, we still have another two to three months before it’s ready for primetime. Right now, launch is slated for the August/September timeframe.”
On July 29th, 2008, Mythic amended their stance regarding their plans for origins by releasing another announcement:
“Initially, we had an aggressive timetable we wanted to meet in order to get this into the players hands as soon as possible. Now, looking at all the feedback and re-examining our own internal goals and objectives for this server, we realize that it’s better to take a step back and take our time with Origins. What this means in practical terms is that you won’t be seeing Origins in the original Aug.-Sept. timeframe. When we are happier with the overall design and functionality, we will begin talking about a launch date. Until then, we thank everyone for participating during this phase of the Origins project.”
It has been almost 6 months, and DAOC fans are left scratching their heads wondering, “Is this really going to happen?” Mythic has yet to give their fans any official updates on the status of the project since then, and now it appears that Mythic has been hit by personnel cuts EA has made due to economic concerns. Mythic no doubt has their hands full with Warhammer Online, which has been wrestling with its own issues. Mark Jacobs made this comment on the Warhammer Alliance regarding the layoffs in regards to Warhammer support:
“It isn’t any more complicated than that other than to say that we have a very large studio and pretty much every person there has been and will continue to work on WAR for quite a while (meaning we haven’t started work on another game yet),” he continued. “When we launched, we had over 400 people working on the game in one capacity or another so it’s not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now.”
There definitely seems to be a demand for Origins, and you would think that given that demand, Mythic would recognize the opportunity to generate some more revenue from their DAOC brand. I find it amazing that there hasn’t been much of an update on the official site in almost 6 months, and one has to wonder if the revenue opportunity is getting smaller the longer they remain silent.
Hopefully the economic turmoil and layoffs have not derailed Mythic’s original plans to give their old fans a taste of DAOC’s original glory. Perhaps Jacobs is telling the truth about “pretty much everyone” working on Warhammer, but you owe the DAOC customers who made your company successful at least some form of an update on if and when this project will see the light of day, or if it has been canceled.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
DAOC Origins: 6 Months of Silence
DAOC Origins: 6 Months of Silence
A long time ago old Dark Age of Camelot fans were rejoicing when Mythic announced that they were going to be releasing their “Origins” server. Many of the game’s original fans had become disenchanted with DAOC after the release of some controversial expansion packs, and fans had been longing to relive that original DAOC experience.
On June 2nd, 2008, Mythic announced on the Camelot Herald the Origins project and revealed their plan:
“This server is designed to return DAOC to the great game experience it was in 2001/2002, while also applying wisdom from the lessons we have learned since then. DAOC is still a great game, but this server has its own appeal that we ‘old school’ players really enjoyed, and our goal is to get back to that while also continuing to support the other rulesets. Origins will not exactly replicate the game as it was is 2001; we are keeping as a part of server the ‘best features’ we have put into the game since launch, such as housing, horses, the market explorer, UI changes (to name only a few) and many of the improved systems introduced over the years.”
The announcement also goes on to lay out their timeframe for the project:
“The most common question continues to be, “Is this really going to happen?”
Origins has been in development for a couple of months now. We have been working with our Team Leads (as part of the Team Lead program) to work through the various gameplay details, ideas, and issues, while also collecting and reading your feedback. Our schedule requires around four to five months of development. This means that since the server has been in development for two months already, we still have another two to three months before it’s ready for primetime. Right now, launch is slated for the August/September timeframe.”
On July 29th, 2008, Mythic amended their stance regarding their plans for origins by releasing another announcement:
“Initially, we had an aggressive timetable we wanted to meet in order to get this into the players hands as soon as possible. Now, looking at all the feedback and re-examining our own internal goals and objectives for this server, we realize that it’s better to take a step back and take our time with Origins. What this means in practical terms is that you won’t be seeing Origins in the original Aug.-Sept. timeframe. When we are happier with the overall design and functionality, we will begin talking about a launch date. Until then, we thank everyone for participating during this phase of the Origins project.”
It has been almost 6 months, and DAOC fans are left scratching their heads wondering, “Is this really going to happen?” Mythic has yet to give their fans any official updates on the status of the project since then, and now it appears that Mythic has been hit by personnel cuts EA has made due to economic concerns. Mythic no doubt has their hands full with Warhammer Online, which has been wrestling with its own issues. Mark Jacobs made this comment on the Warhammer Alliance regarding the layoffs in regards to Warhammer support:
“It isn’t any more complicated than that other than to say that we have a very large studio and pretty much every person there has been and will continue to work on WAR for quite a while (meaning we haven’t started work on another game yet),” he continued. “When we launched, we had over 400 people working on the game in one capacity or another so it’s not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now.”
There definitely seems to be a demand for Origins, and you would think that given that demand, Mythic would recognize the opportunity to generate some more revenue from their DAOC brand. I find it amazing that there hasn’t been much of an update on the official site in almost 6 months, and one has to wonder if the revenue opportunity is getting smaller the longer they remain silent.
Hopefully the economic turmoil and layoffs have not derailed Mythic’s original plans to give their old fans a taste of DAOC’s original glory. Perhaps Jacobs is telling the truth about “pretty much everyone” working on Warhammer, but you owe the DAOC customers who made your company successful at least some form of an update on if and when this project will see the light of day, or if it has been canceled.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
Darkfall Survey Predicts Playstyles
Darkfall Survey Predicts Playstyles
With the slated release date for Darkfall Online approaching, forums have been buzzing with speculation on various aspects of the game in order to try and forecast what players could expect to see once the game goes live. Often times in the static of forums post and polls, something interesting gets drowned out in all the noise. Darkfall EU, a fansite for the anticipated MMO, ran a detailed survey that asked future players about their plans and views for when the game goes live. If you have been following Darkfall for a long time like me, you might find the results of this very interesting. The survey claims to have sampled a pool size of over 1600, and projects a margin of error near 3%. For the purposes of this article I will be using the combined European + North American data tables.
The Race Poll
The Alfar seem to have narrowly won the race poll, but when you consider the margin of error, they are roughly tied with the Humans. Remember that the premise of Darkfall has the races divided into 3 teams which break down as Humans / Dwarves / Mirdain Vs. Mahirim / Ork Vs. Alfar. If we add up all the percentages based on factional distribution, we see that the Alfar have roughly 25% of the population, the “good” races come in with about 47%, leaving the Mahirim and Orks with roughly 27%.
We can see that the “good” races seem to definitely have the population advantage assuming this data is correct, but we have to take into account that their team also has the most races included in it. The Orks on the other hand come in last place in terms of popularity by a substantial margin. On a personal note, I have always been fascinated by the races people pick in MMOs. I suspect a lot of people may tend to play races that are pleasing to the eye, which could also explain why the Orks might be dead last.
The “Evil” Poll
This is another poll I found to be very interesting. It looks like 2/3 of the players said they would kill someone on their team depending on the situation. This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the context of that situation, or your viewpoint. The poll doesn’t allow people to describe that situation, which could probably range from self-defense to capitalizing on a moment of weakness. We just can’t tell for sure, but what we can see is that about 1/4 of the players are ready to commit murder.
The other table also is very revealing as it asks those who are willing to commit murder what race they plan on playing. We see that a staggering 38% of them plan to roll Orks, and 36% of them plan to be Alfars, which means the “good” races are the least likely to commit murder. You have to wonder about the psychology behind this. Orks are generally perceived to be an evil race in most fantasy settings, so perhaps players who pick Orks are more committed to follow through on being evil? The Alfar on the other hand are on their own team, so many players perceived this as being the hard road, especially with the population against them. Some people speculated that maybe this shared mutual struggle would make the Alfar work together out of necessity, but I am guessing that Alfar players have committed themselves to taking the hard road, so may be more willing to take it all the way.
The “Safe” Poll
Here we can see the people most likely to not be killed. I find it surprising that the thing people seem to have the most respect for are players engaged in a duel. Given the number still shows that more than half would kill a person in a duel (if you look at the inverse of the number), there is something to be said about respecting 2 people settling something the old way. I suppose one could also argue that after a duel the targets will be at their weakest, so I guess I’ll let you decide. Crafters and newbies seems to find a little more love than I expected, but I would argue that a newbie may be harder to identify in Darkfall because you are unable to con players with there being no levels at all. I guess its best to be a good aligned newbie in a duel, if you roleplay or look like a challenge people will be eager to bring you back to reality.
Playstyle Poll
This poll shows us the playstyle the future Darkfall player tends to learn towards, and who the game is appealing towards. It is no surprise to see that the PvP crowd makes up over half the of target audience, but it also seems that the zoneless and seamless world idea definitely seems to have those explorer types interested in going out into the wilderness to see what secrets the world is hiding. One bit of troubling news is that crafters seem to be in short supply, and according to Darkfall EU he elaborates on this point.
“What may be of some concern is that 67.50% of crafters plan to be in the Human alliance, whereas only 9.90% will be Alfar crafters. If we assume that 1/4 of players roll an Alfar, it looks like they could be struggling to find a good crafter.”
The “Sausage” Poll
I call this one the sausage poll because it pretty much confirms something I think all we knew deep down. Darkfall Online will indeed be one of the internet’s biggest sausage fests.
The guys over at Darkfall EU seems to have put a lot of effort into this survey, and hopefully you found this as interesting as I did. There are a few other tables over there that I didn’t touch on just for the sake of time, but if you are bored you might want to go look over to the Survey Results Page over there, take a look at the entire thing, and read their analysis. I’m curious to hear your take on the results.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
Darkfall Survey Predicts Playstyles
Darkfall Survey Predicts Playstyles
With the slated release date for Darkfall Online approaching, forums have been buzzing with speculation on various aspects of the game in order to try and forecast what players could expect to see once the game goes live. Often times in the static of forums post and polls, something interesting gets drowned out in all the noise. Darkfall EU, a fansite for the anticipated MMO, ran a detailed survey that asked future players about their plans and views for when the game goes live. If you have been following Darkfall for a long time like me, you might find the results of this very interesting. The survey claims to have sampled a pool size of over 1600, and projects a margin of error near 3%. For the purposes of this article I will be using the combined European + North American data tables.
The Race Poll
The Alfar seem to have narrowly won the race poll, but when you consider the margin of error, they are roughly tied with the Humans. Remember that the premise of Darkfall has the races divided into 3 teams which break down as Humans / Dwarves / Mirdain Vs. Mahirim / Ork Vs. Alfar. If we add up all the percentages based on factional distribution, we see that the Alfar have roughly 25% of the population, the “good” races come in with about 47%, leaving the Mahirim and Orks with roughly 27%.
We can see that the “good” races seem to definitely have the population advantage assuming this data is correct, but we have to take into account that their team also has the most races included in it. The Orks on the other hand come in last place in terms of popularity by a substantial margin. On a personal note, I have always been fascinated by the races people pick in MMOs. I suspect a lot of people may tend to play races that are pleasing to the eye, which could also explain why the Orks might be dead last.
The “Evil” Poll
This is another poll I found to be very interesting. It looks like 2/3 of the players said they would kill someone on their team depending on the situation. This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the context of that situation, or your viewpoint. The poll doesn’t allow people to describe that situation, which could probably range from self-defense to capitalizing on a moment of weakness. We just can’t tell for sure, but what we can see is that about 1/4 of the players are ready to commit murder.
The other table also is very revealing as it asks those who are willing to commit murder what race they plan on playing. We see that a staggering 38% of them plan to roll Orks, and 36% of them plan to be Alfars, which means the “good” races are the least likely to commit murder. You have to wonder about the psychology behind this. Orks are generally perceived to be an evil race in most fantasy settings, so perhaps players who pick Orks are more committed to follow through on being evil? The Alfar on the other hand are on their own team, so many players perceived this as being the hard road, especially with the population against them. Some people speculated that maybe this shared mutual struggle would make the Alfar work together out of necessity, but I am guessing that Alfar players have committed themselves to taking the hard road, so may be more willing to take it all the way.
The “Safe” Poll
Here we can see the people most likely to not be killed. I find it surprising that the thing people seem to have the most respect for are players engaged in a duel. Given the number still shows that more than half would kill a person in a duel (if you look at the inverse of the number), there is something to be said about respecting 2 people settling something the old way. I suppose one could also argue that after a duel the targets will be at their weakest, so I guess I’ll let you decide. Crafters and newbies seems to find a little more love than I expected, but I would argue that a newbie may be harder to identify in Darkfall because you are unable to con players with there being no levels at all. I guess its best to be a good aligned newbie in a duel, if you roleplay or look like a challenge people will be eager to bring you back to reality.
Playstyle Poll
This poll shows us the playstyle the future Darkfall player tends to learn towards, and who the game is appealing towards. It is no surprise to see that the PvP crowd makes up over half the of target audience, but it also seems that the zoneless and seamless world idea definitely seems to have those explorer types interested in going out into the wilderness to see what secrets the world is hiding. One bit of troubling news is that crafters seem to be in short supply, and according to Darkfall EU he elaborates on this point.
“What may be of some concern is that 67.50% of crafters plan to be in the Human alliance, whereas only 9.90% will be Alfar crafters. If we assume that 1/4 of players roll an Alfar, it looks like they could be struggling to find a good crafter.”
The “Sausage” Poll
I call this one the sausage poll because it pretty much confirms something we I think all knew deep down. Darkfall Online will indeed be one of the internet’s biggest sausage fests.
The guys over at Darkfall EU seems to have put a lot of effort into this survey, and hopefully you found this as interesting as I did. There are a few other tables over there that I didn’t touch on just for the sake of time, but if you are bored you might want to go look over to the Survey Results Page over there, take a look at the entire thing, and read their analysis. I’m curious to hear your take on the results.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
