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Darkfall December patches include cannons, new dungeon, and more
Darkfall fans have more to look forward to this month than just a holiday to get off work (and game more!); Aventurine has posted a list of features that are coming to the sandbox during December. Along with UI changes (a new chat system and hotbars that show skill placement), players will get to experience a new epic dungeon called Sinspire Cathedral, cannons atop the towers in player cities, and Prowess Monoliths that grant prowess to all those who stand inside. Additionally, the third Primalist school -- Chaos -- is in the final stages of development, but might need a little extra time and miss a December release. For more details on these December highlights, check out the official post. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Hands-on with Darkfall's Japanese open beta
I'm not very good at aiming. I prefer third person to first person view. Nintendo consoles and games are my drug of choice when I'm not on a PC. I hate duels and arenas. I tend to spend my time gathering resources or crafting and want to kill only mobs or players if I must. On the Bartle test of gamer psychology, I'm 60% Explorer/Socializer and 40% Achiever/Killer. And I loved Darkfall Online. Aside from Aventurine's little, ah, "delays," Darkfall was always a lot of fun for me, even though the guild I joined was established years before I met its members. However, when I moved to Japan, I was region-locked out of the game and unable to check out the revamped Dark Fall: Unholy Wars until recently when the Asian open beta began. I've done my best to keep up to date on the game, but reading information and playing the game are two different things. This was not so much a welcome home for me as it was a returning to my hometown after a few years to find that the buildings and local language have changed. That may sound negative to some people, and it could be, but for me, it was an adventure, which has always been something DF offers me that other games struggle to match.
Darkfall Unholy Wars updates the balance of power
It was a couple of weeks ago that the development team behind Darkfall Unholy Wars first discussed the issue. Warriors in the game were just too good, meaning that the class meant as the easiest to first pick up was also the easiest to absolutely crush your enemies with. So the team stepped back, examined the problem, and put together a comprehensive set of changes meant to make all of the game's roles more appealing. The three major changes put into effect were an increase to damage mitigation for non-Warrior armors, more normalized stats for every role, and a slight reduction in Warrior armor against the relevant damage from specialized damage types. The net effect should be that weaker classes now stay up longer and can deal more damage to Warriors, allowing more skilled players to pull ahead in battle. For more details including revamps to the wobble mechanics and individual ability tweaks, take a look at the full list of balance changes. [Thanks to Jane for the tip!]
Darkfall looks at adjusting class balance
The Darkfall team senses that something is off, and that something is the lopsided use of classes. Namely, more players pick Warriors due to high survivability while eschewing some of the other classes. This will be addressed in an upcoming patch to help even the playing field. A new forum post outlines the issue of Warrior dominance and the "very short duration" of fights involving Skirmishers and Elementalists. The patch that's planned to adjust this will be fully revealed next week once the team has finished with internal testing. "The goal is to make combat more fun, exciting and challenging, while achieving a healthy balance between all roles," the post declares. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Darkfall's Duelist update also ushered in treasure map changes
With a brand new Skirmisher school -- the Duelist -- to try out courtesy of Darkfall's most recent update, it would be understandable if players didn't noticed the other aspects of the patch that hit Agon this week. Along with fixes in the areas of performance, conquest, and the world, an overhauled treasure map system was introduced where map size determines treasure placement. This new system means that treasure maps will no longer direct you to a spawn randomly anywhere in the world. Instead, the size of the treasure map dictates in what level of danger zone the spawn will be located. Small maps will lead to a lower danger zone, but to dig up the treasure from a large map, players will have to venture into Danger Level V zones. These changes and more can be found in the patch notes. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip.]
Get a look at Darkfall's Duelist in action
A new skirmisher class, the Duelist, is coming to Darkfall this week. It hits hard and quick, although it's also not as tough as some of the other classes, so players will need to be mindful of this when taking one out for a test drive. The class is able to use skills like flurry, lacerate, lunge, pummel, and uncanny focus in taking down its foes. You can check out the Duelist in action, including its core abilities, in a new video after the jump!
Aventurine expects Darkfall's Duelist to be 'the role of choice for experienced PvPers'
Aventurine is preparing a new skirmisher school for Darkfall. It's called the Duelist, and as you might surmise, it's heavy on damage capability. The announcement post describes it as "an ultra high mobility melee glass cannon." AV says that the Duelist will bring twitch-play "back into the equation" and will likely "be the role of choice for the experienced PvPers." The post mentions a few odds-and-ends about the Duelist's skill set, in particular abilities like Flurry, Lacerate, and Pummel. The school also features a cooldown reset that works for both Duelist skills and skills from other schools. The Duelist is due to be released in Darkfall's upcoming content patch.
Darkfall working on better chat interface and AI upgrades
Darkfall is making the most of the hot summer months as the team is scrambling to finish up a few projects and keep tabs on the Asian version in testing. In a recent update letter, everyone's favorite snack chips-slash-developer Tasos Flambouras relays a list of what the team has been working on. Among the projects listed is a new chat interface, more functional clan vault logs, AI upgrades for mobs, a new Skirmisher school, and role balance. The patch to deliver some of these changes should be coming in the next month. "We're also supporting our Korean partner with the Korean and Japanese versions of Darkfall Unholy Wars," Flambouras writes. "We believe that the game has already benefited and will keep benefiting from this cooperation in the form of feedback we get, feature requests, optimizations, additional content as well as from the new perspective of a different market." [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Darkfall Unholy Wars accidentally logs everyone in as an administrator
Everyone who logged in to Darkfall Unholy Wars to test the latest patch got an unexpected surprise not listed in the patch notes. Sure, everyone was expecting new warships and combat changes, but everyone was not expecting to log in as an administrator. That was apparently true of every single player logging in immediately after the patch, prompting immediate forum speculation that a rollback was imminent. According to an official statement, the addition of the admin tag was purely a display glitch and no players actually had access to admin powers. Whether that's accurate or it's simply a matter of no players figuring out the admin commands before the issue was fixed is slightly ambiguous. Either way, the patch is now live and everyone can enjoy it, but not everyone can enjoy the sort of unfettered PvP you'd find in a world of admins -- which is probably a good thing. [Thanks to MandatoryDDs for the tip!]
Darkfall tweaks Sea Fortress events, Slayer barrage skill
This week's planned Darkfall patch is worth noting for a couple of reasons. No, those reasons aren't the new frigate and the new ship of the line, though they are both pretty slick. We're talking about the introduction of Agon's new Sea Fortresses, which Aventurine is touting as "a big server event." The firm has adjusted the frequency of the events from every three days to every six and 11 days. In particular, the second fortress event will feature "appropriately bigger loot." Drops will include a big chunk of gold and possibly runestones, portal shards, black powder, cannons, modules, advanced ship modules, and more. Aventurine also previews changes to the Slayer's barrage skill in its latest dev blog. Click through the links below to read all about it. [Thanks Dengar!]
Darkfall gains two new warships and a new class today
Bug fixing updates are all well and good (not to mention necessary), but you can't help but love a patch that adds more content as well! And today's Darkfall Unholy Wars patch does both. Besides some HUD and general fixes, Aventurine has added two new ships and a new class to the sandbox. The Junk and Barque are both fairly slow warships, lined with cannons -- 12 side and one rear on the former and nine side and two on each the front and rear on the latter. To craft either, a player needs a shipbuilding mastery of 50. The new class is the Slayer, a melee warrior with skills like Battle Rage and Vampiric Strike. Changes were also made to the village capturing and stealing mechanics to help the villages fall more in line with their envisioned purpose of being PvP hotspots. Full details on these and the other changes can be found in the patch notes. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Darkfall patches in new boats, a new dungeon, and other improvements
Maybe you've already been on a boat in Darkfall Unholy Wars, but you haven't been on the newest boats. You couldn't have been. They've just been patched in today, allowing players new ways to be unstoppable due to their aquatic mode of transportation. But that's just the least of what's been changed in the latest patch being deployed today. In addition to having new boats, the patch features a new dungeon known as Svartvann as well as the new Darkbrood family, infesting Svartvann as well as Aldan Enak and Grivendale. There are also some noteworthy changes to Primalist spell functionality as well as a new skill meant to disable perpetual blocking. And you can have a new ship module if you can't get enough of aquatic antics. If none of the above strikes your fancy, you can at least enjoy the requisite bug fixes and UI updates that should make the game more fun to play for everyone. [Thanks to LanMandragon for the tip!]
Darkfall is half off on Steam through July 22
Got any money left in your wallet after Steam's summer sale? If so, and if you're in the market for a PvP-centric fantasy sandbox MMO, check out Darkfall. Aventurine's title is half-price until July 22nd, so instead of 40 bucks you can grab the game client for $19.97. Keep in mind that Darkfall is a subscription title, so you'll need to chip in $14.95 a month to continue playing after the first 30 days. [Thanks everyone who tipped us!]
Darkfall market system coming this week
Darkfall's getting a new market system in this week's patch, according to a developer blog recently posted on the game's official website. Markets will initially be available in the four NPC capital cities, but Aventurine plans to add more in the future. Markets feature an order system, so players can place and fulfill both buy and sell orders, or even use the new system for player-created quests. "New players looking to earn gold can work to fulfill buy orders that are available," AV explains. You can browse the market from anywhere in the game world simply by using the appropriate GUI button, but placing and fulfilling orders will require a trip to one of the capital market buildings.
Darkfall adds shipbuilding mastery, warships, harbors, and more
Yesterday's Darkfall patch added some noteworthy new content to Agon. First up is a new crafting skill called Shipbuilding Mastery, which requires Shipbuilding 100 and Prowess 10.000. The mastery skill is a prerequisite for the game's new warships, which -- you guessed it -- also debuted in yesterday's patch. Aventurine has added a Coastal Runner, which is the fastest ship in the game. It's a good thing it's so quick, too, because it has no cannons. There's also the Pinnace, a warship featuring three cannons. Harbors and shipyards are also available to build in clan holdings as of the patch. There's more, including plenty of gameplay tweaks and general fixes. The Darkfall forums has a listing of the full patch notes. [Thanks Dengar!]
Darkfall introduces new Broadherne dungeon with recent patch
Yesterday saw a new content patch for Darkfall:Unholy Wars as detailed in a post at the official forums. In addition to the regular bug fixes, this patch also brings with it the new Broadherne dungeon, new monsters, cooking mastery, party harvesting, and much more. A new utility ship -- called the Fishing Trawler -- has also been added. This boat opens up new cooking mastery fish and new harvesting loot tables that give more substantial rewards when fishing in dangerous areas. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Choose My Adventure: Putting the finishing touches on our Darkfall project
Well, that just about does it. After weeks of your directing me through Darkfall Unholy Wars, our Choose My Adventure project is almost completed. We just have a few finishing touches to add before wrapping up -- namely, sieges! What romp through the wilds of Agon would be complete without experiencing the thrill of clan territorial warfare? You all couldn't let me leave without participating in a few sieges (which won over warfare on water by a narrow margin), and the server seemed more than willing to oblige. From small skirmishes infiltrating the cities of enemies to an all-out war to protect our own, I had the chance to fight -- and occasionally die -- in a few different sieges this past week. Considering I was still fairly new and fighting against a number of vets from the original Darkfall with years of practice under their belts, I didn't do too shabbily. Perhaps more importantly, I had fun through it all.%Gallery-187735%
Choose My Adventure: Building on the clan experience in Darkfall
Boy, MJ's Misadventureland is really coming along! Hiring a few more hands sure has sped things up; you wouldn't even recognize the project now compared to even just one week ago. But isn't that the whole point of Choose My Adventure -- to watch the adventure that you're building develop and unfold? Well, that and to snicker at your Massively guinea pigs... we know. Having gone into this particular adventure knowing that Darkfall Unholy Wars was not a game meant for the solo soul, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I found myself in a clan to experience more of the heart of the game, which just so happens to be clan warfare. And trust me, the clan wasted no time throwing me into the thick of things once you put me in one. Although I do think starting off solo was important to get the real experience Darkfall any new player would (after all, most find a clan after first logging in), this week really has shown me a whole new game. I'd just scratched the surface before, the skin if you will, and now I've peered into the heart and seen the seedy underbelly as well.%Gallery-187735%
Darkfall plans summer content update, suffers DDOS attack [Updated]
Darkfall's long-awaited Unholy Wars makeover launched almost a month ago, and now Aventurine is turning its eyes toward the future of its PvP-focused fantasy sandbox. AV's Tasos Flambouras posted a schedule of planned content updates on the forums earlier this week that stretches all the way into July. Aside from the usual MMO bug fixes and tweaks, there are major additions like the Svartvann, Marthnyr, Hardruk, and Dulguna dungeons, new families of monsters, new ships, and sea fortresses. [Thanks Dengar!] [Update: Aventurine is reporting that its NA servers are suffering the effects of a DDoS attack. The official blog reads, "In regard to the ping issues on the NA server the past couple of days, this was due to a DDoS attack during NA prime time. We have taken measures in cooperation with our hosting providers to filter this attack, and we're monitoring the situation. We'll keep you updated and we apologize for any inconvenience."]
Choose My Adventure: Beyond the walls of safety in Darkfall
Man up MJ, you said. Forsake the fetters of safety and wander the wilds of the world. Yes, folks, for the next phase of our Choose My Adventure project, you directed me to leave the confines of the starting cities and surrounding lands to explore and harvest in the unprotected areas in Darkfall Unholy Wars. That, and get familiar with the workbench for crafting. So said you all, and so I did. I ran little Emey Brokenclaw beyond the bounds of the safe zones and introduced her to the vast lands stretching across Agon. I enjoyed some exciting experiences as well as learned quite a few things during that journey, though not necessarily what you'd expect.%Gallery-187735%
