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Choose My Adventure: Swiftsnout theCrotchety
Aaaaaaooooooooooooo... er, sorry. I was just getting into character a bit early, I suppose. Welcome back, loyal readers and Aventurine subscribers alike, to Choose My Adventure. With the past couple weeks' worth of voting formalities behind us, it's time for the main event. As we speak, I'm rolling up a brand-spanking-new Darkfall character, the better to suffer at the hands of my new PK overlords -- and hopefully get a good look at the world of Agon prior to writing about it over the next six weeks. Join me after the cut to see the results of last week's voting and get a sneak peek at what I'll be doing first.
New Darkfall blog talks optimizing interaction and offline leveling
Darkfall has always had a reputation for being a very hardcore game, but Aventurine has been hard at work trying to improve the in-game experience for all players -- both the well-known PvP audience and the more PvE-focused crowd. In the most recent official blog, Tasos Flambouras calls the team's focus "optimizing interaction," a convenient catch-all term for an overarching goal of making the game world and the interface easier to work with and more meaningful to players. Flambouras mentions the previously discussed offline skill leveling -- in short, you will pay gold to meditate on a skill to advance it while you're offline. The feature will be limited to a few skills when first implemented, but if it proves not to cause any balance issues, more skills will be added to the roster. There's a lot of information about where the Darkfall development team is placing its emphasis, so take a look at the full article for a peek inside the team members' head.
Choose My Adventure: Agon awaits
Join me as I become an action hero for hire, experiencing an online adventure directed by you, the Massively readers. You'll get to choose the game, character creation options, and in-game goals, then sit back and watch how it all plays out (or join me in-game to get in on the fun). Choose My Adventure game arcs run for six weeks, and after the concluding episode, we'll do it again in a new title. 'Tis the season for voting, and I'm primed to do my part to balance the PvP, eliminate missed launch dates, and provide a strong national troll defense. OK, maybe I'm as full of hot air as your average elected official. Last week, though, while some of you were fooling yourselves into thinking the U.S. midterm elections were the most important voting opportunity in your lifetimes, the real action was going on right here in the form of the latest Choose My Adventure poll. Thanks to a monumental zerg by members of the Darkfall forum community, I'll be heading to the lands of Agon for the next six weeks. While Final Fantasy XIV and EVE Online both looked like early frontrunners, nothing could withstand the momentum of 1400 frothing FFA Forumfall fanboys (not even a late-week surge by Global Agenda). If you're not familiar with Darkfall, join me after the cut for a brief history lesson. If you already know it all, join me after the cut anyway to help pick my character race, game focus, and social status.
Darkfall highlights dev team tasks, PvP tips contest
Are you curious about Darkfall but put off by the fact that the open-world sandbox title focuses on PvP? Fear not, as Aventurine is taking steps to make the world of Agon more accessible to a wider range of players. In addition to the recent PvE-focused Hellfreeze expansion, the Greek development firm is also sponsoring a contest designed to impart veteran PvP wisdom to newer players. If you've got PvP tips you don't mind sharing, submit them in the comment section of the contest blog post, and you could be one of five winners who will receive rare in-game ingots and an exclusive forum title. In other Darkfall news, Tasos Flambouras has given us a peek behind the curtain of the game's development schedule, courtesy of another blog post that outlines both the team work groups and their respective responsibilities over the next few weeks. Aventurine's staffers are currently split into 11 teams, all working to grow the game in terms of UI updates, server tools, offline skilling, and various other game mechanics. Flambouras' posting is an interesting look at a Scrum-based software development cycle, and you can check it out on the official website.
Darkfall prepping offline skill advancement
Tired of the lengthy skill-grind in Darkfall, as well as the perception that it will take newer players many months to be competitive with veterans? Aventurine has heard your concerns and is currently in the process of implementing a form of offline skill advancement for the PvP sandbox MMORPG. In a recent activity report on the Darkfall forums, developer Tasos Flambouras clarified the plans for offline advancement and was quick to point out that Aventurine doesn't intend for the mechanic to be used as a substitute for skilling up. "We're not looking to upset the game's balance by adding a convenience feature and this is why I mentioned there's a lot of thought and balancing going into this. So on offline skilling, we'll start with a small amount of skills and gradually expand it, and obviously many skills won't be included," he writes. Offline skilling is nothing new in MMORPGs, as EVE Online has used the system for years, and even themepark games like Age of Conan have gotten into the act. Whether Darkfall implements a similar system or tries something completely new, Massively will be there to bring you the latest.
Aventurine reaches out to Darkfall community with tournament video
Darkfall's devs are going out of their way to interact with the community of late. Whether it's in the form of new blog entries or unannounced presences at in-game events, it's clear the Aventurine braintrust is interested in keeping their fingers firmly on the community's pulse. The latest outreach example takes the form of a forum post by Tascha, a developer who shares a company-produced video that was recently recorded at a dueling tournament on the game's EU server. "Several of us, including Aventurine's CEO, where watching from the shadows during the last 1vs1 Tournament on EU organized by Ninogan Swiftstep," Tascha writes. As for the tourney itself, it was a labor of love for Swiftstep. "When you spend as much time as you do with an MMO, you want to make the most of your time and do cool stuff. For Darkfall, which is all about PvP for me, doing something like this felt natural," he says. Keep an eye on Darkfall's community events forum for more happenings around the world of Agon, and don't forget to check out the tourney video after the break.
Aventurine squelches Darkfall 2 rumors, for now
Darkfall news has been flowing fast and furious of late. Whether it's info on the newly minted Hellfreeze expansion and its patches, upcoming character model upgrades, or new lore, it seems like the little Greek MMO that could is gathering a head of steam. One bit of news that got blown slightly out of proportion was a reported mention of Darkfall 2. Aventurine's Tasos Flambouras briefly mentioned Darkfall 2 at a recent event, and some fans took that to mean the company was already working on a sequel to the sandbox MMORPG. In reality, Flambouras was speaking of reusable assets and the fact that the development firm is "keeping the future of Darkfall in mind while we work on this version of the game. It doesn't mean that we're working on a new game." In a post on the official forums, Flambouras reiterates that Aventurine's devs are not currently making a Darkfall sequel, and even if they were, "it would take years to complete and we would not stop full development of Darkfall 1."
Darkfall teases character model upgrades and more
The devs at Aventurine apparently never sleep, as releasing a major expansion and graphics revamp was the tip of the iceberg as far as what's happening on Darkfall's horizon. The team has generated three separate news items in the last week, all of them pointing towards exciting things in store for the world of Agon. First up is a design blog posted on the official website. In it, community manager Laenih gives us an inside look at the process of converting a quick design sketch into a finished in-game model. Due to the small size of Aventurine's development team, this process often means that quest designers take up paper and pencil (or the digital equivalent) in order to present modelers with a clear idea of their vision. Next up are some screenshots previewing Darkfall's new character models. While the world of Agon is often praised for its size, detail, and beauty, the game's character models have thus far lagged a bit behind the current MMORPG visual standard. Not to worry though, as an upgrade is in the works, and you can view photos of some of the new models on Darkfall's Facebook page. Last but not least are the patch notes from this past week, which address a few niggling issues related to the Hellfreeze expansion. Read all about it on the official boards.
One Shots: Every day is Halloween
It's been a while since we've had someone send in a screenshot from the dangerous lands of Darkfall. However, with the season of ghouls, ghosts, and goblins here once again, it's a great time to check in on this devilishly dangerous, PvP-centric MMO. Today's One Shots comes to us from The Format, who is an admirer of the game that Aventurine built. He writes in to tell us a bit more about this pumpkin-colored image: "I don't think I have ever seen a picture from Darkfall on Massively, which is why I took this picture. A lot of people don't think that this game has any beauty to it, but it really does, as shown by this picture. I was running through a forest when I saw the sun had started to come up. The sun rising over the forest made me realize more how the environments in this game are some of the best in any MMO." One Shots is always on the lookout for more screenshots. If you'd like to contribute something, just email it in to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game that the image comes from, and a description of what we're seeing in the picture. You never know -- yours could be the next one we feature here on Massively! %Gallery-85937%
Hell freezes over as Darkfall's latest expansion takes a bow
Darkfall isn't exactly renowned for its subtlety, so perhaps it's only fitting that the latest expansion for the indie sandbox game sounds like something an amped-up PvP junkie would choose for a character name. Ladies and gentlemen, Aventurine presents... Hellfreeze (cue the bombastic Hans Zimmer music). All kidding aside, today's update contains quite a lot of PvE content for a PvP-centric game (perhaps the titular hell freezing over is a result of this interesting development?), as well as a hugely ambitious graphical reskinning of the entire world of Agon. In addition to the extreme makeover, no less than 17 dungeons have been redesigned to feature better rewards, more challenges, and new daily quests. All of the PvE-craziness is intended to "set the stage for many new dungeon style encounters to be introduced in the near future," according to the expansion announcement on the official website. The update also introduces Funhulks, the Player Flag system, and new mounts and ships (including the first craftable vessel that doesn't require a shipyard), all of which points to Aventurine's desire to broaden the game's horizons beyond the red-equals-dead crowd that typically inhabits a FFA/corpse-looting MMORPG. Check out the official announcement for more gory details.
Aventurine expanding Darkfall, development team
As much as many in the MMO community love to hate on Darkfall, the game soldiers on, and if recent reports coming out of Aventurine are any indication, it's actually growing a little bit. Producer Tasos Flambouras recently posted a lengthy development update on the game's official forums. In it, he discusses the ongoing server issues before moving on to more interesting news bits like the upcoming expansion, lore updates, and tweaks to various smaller aspects of the game's operation such as the online help and download sections of the website. Aventurine's main task these last few weeks has been polishing the new expansion, and Flambouras has lots to say on the matter. The team has redesigned many of the new dungeons, added new quests, monsters, and rewards, and continued working on terrain improvements. "I have to repeat what a monumental task this has been: the entire world has been repainted, all textures have been redone from scratch, there are no texture seams anymore or stretching," Flambouras writes. Finally, Aventurine looks to be expanding not just the world of Agon but the team constructing it. In addition to welcoming back a former member of the world-building team, Aventurine has hired two new programmers and one designer, and is currently interviewing more programmers in order to bring its future Darkfall plans to fruition.
Darkfall expansion delayed, treasure hunting in the works
Lots of stuff is going on in the world of Agon, and the weekend brought us a double-shot of news updates, one good and one not so good. Aventurine's Tasos Flambouras recently checked in on the official boards to announce a delay on the upcoming expansion. The delay appears to be primarily performance-related. "The expansion is forced back a short while longer, we hope no longer than a couple of weeks, in order to get the performance right, and everything in the expansion working properly and tested thoroughly so there's no repeat of the last setback with the terrain feature," he wrote. Aventurine has also been having trouble with its network service provider, and the post provides a few details along those lines as well. Now for the good news: treasure hunting is coming to Darkfall, courtesy of the aforementioned expansion. Players will be able to acquire map-reading skills from NPCs, make their own shovels to unearth various objects, and use treasure map hints to determine appropriate dig locations. "We are already planning on expanding this system, which means you can expect additional treasure hunt features being added on top of the one we talked about today," writes Aventurine's Laenih on the Darkfall forums.
Darkfall EU server latency issues to be corrected
Denizens of Darkfall's European shard have been subjected to a rough ride of late, and not just from the title's relentless PvP action. Due to a Storage Area Network hardware failure at Aventurine's third-party hosting center, players have seen high amounts of latency over the last week. The bad news is that Aventurine doesn't have a specific timetable for correcting the problem. The good news is that the company is currently working on it, as well as prepping for future hardware upgrades. "Performance is an extremely serious issue with us and we're constantly working on improvements. Apart from dealing with this specific issue, we are currently working on major performance upgrades for both servers to be added during the upcoming expansion," says Darkfall's Tasos Flambouras on the game's official forums.
Darkfall community Q&A follow-up offers more details
Aventurine's Tasos Flamboras has donned his flame-retardant gear and ventured into the eternally blazing forest that is the Darkfall forums in an attempt to douse the fires raging after the publication of a lengthy Q&A session earlier this week. Put together by noted Darkfall blogger Paragus, the community-generated question list was initially answered by a three-man team that included Flambouras as well as developers Claus Grovdal and Kjetil Helland. Controversy erupted when community members balked at the perceived evasiveness of the answers. "When we say that we're looking into something, or considering, or have plans for, it doesn't mean that we're being evasive or diplomatic in our answers. If that was our intention, we simply wouldn't answer. It means that we're trying to give you actual insight or confirmation on what we can't go into detail about," Flambouras says. He goes on to briefly outline Aventurine's information-revealing methodology before expounding on a few of the answers from the Q&A as well as new tidbits like armor dyes, significant improvements to crafting, a completely redesigned UI, and of course the prestige class system. "Prestige classes are the largest feature ever added to Darkfall and will definitely change the face of the game," Flambouras states.
The Daily Grind: How do you like your PvP?
Ah, PvP. Personally I kinda hate it, even on those rare occasions when I manage to emerge victorious. In small doses it's OK, but usually it consists of getting face-rolled by a player who knows the game systems much better than I do. That said, minigame PvP is quite enjoyable, particularly Age of Conan's variety, as well as the scenarios in Warhammer Online. For a carebear like me, the only way to make PvP even semi-palatable is to grant control over when and if it happens. Sure, we may still lose and provide a good belly-laugh to the seasoned killers who view us as their game content, but at least they're not barging in on an otherwise productive session of questing, crafting, or exploring. What about you, Massively readers? Do you prefer your PvP in spurts such as minigame instances or battlegrounds, or do you like the open-world FFA option common in games like Darkfall and Mortal Online?
Darkfall community Q&A hints at massive game expansion
Its been quite awhile since Aventurine first sat down for a community-based question and answer session with noted Darkfall blogger Paragus. Today, he brings us part two of the lengthy interview, which features a whopping 57 questions generated by Darkfall players. As you would expect, some of the answers are short and fluffy, but many are quite informative as to the future of the PvP sandbox title. Stashed away inside the deluge of queries are a few gems about upcoming content, including mention of the cryptically titled Darkfall 2010 project. "[It] comes after the next expansion and is a much bigger proposition. Darkfall 2010 is our internal code name for this project. Our intent is to have it complete within the year, but we can't rule out that it will take longer than that. We've been working on this for quite a while, it's parallel development to Darkfall and almost as big a project as making a new game," Aventurine says. Aside from that teaser, there is also talk of prestige classes, performance improvements, and the long-awaited four-legged running feature for the mahirim race. Sadly, it seems as if this particular fan wish isn't going to be granted anytime soon, despite the assets already existing in the live game. "Our main problem is that it is an unbalancing factor," says Aventurine.
Massively's Community Detective, Issue #2: Darkfall and EVE Online
"We hope you understand that there's nothing we can do at the moment," says the support email we just received from Aventurine, developers of Darkfall. Not exactly what you want to hear from customer service, is it? Welcome to another issue of Massively's Community Detective, where we're primed and ready to take you into the trenches of MMORPG community and customer service. This week we've got full-blown battlefields complete with land mines, dismemberment, e-peen waving, and all the other things you've come to know and love about PvP. Yes, we're delving into the world of Darkfall, and if that's not enough for you, we'll also be heading for the heavens in a very different (but equally cutthroat) PvP sandbox called EVE Online. Join us after the cut to see how these two titles fared in terms of community and customer service support.
Darkfall details expansion mob AI
One of the things that makes Darkfall unique is its mob and NPC AI. Unlike traditional MMORPGs, the creatures in the world of Agon use the same skills that players use and also drop appropriate loot (for example, killing a goblin will likely net you his sword and armor, and boars don't drop coin). With the upcoming free expansion, the developers at Aventurine are further tweaking the game's PvE elements by adding additional monster skills to specific creatures. Laenih, Aventurine's community liaison, has all the details in a new post on the game's official forums. "Some existing monsters as well as new ones have already received their own abilities which we'll leave for you to discover. Additionally there will be more strategic interaction between monsters that spawn together," he writes. You can get a glimpse of one of the new monster teams in the form of a video that showcases the Gorra Dar and Gorra Slaves. Check it out after the cut or on YouTube.
Darkfall PvE expansion delayed
Say what you will about Aventurine and its PvP-centric MMORPG known as Darkfall, but one thing you can't say is that it doesn't communicate with its player base, even when the news is less than stellar. Lead developer Tasos Flambouras checked in on the official forums today with an update on the game's forthcoming expansion. The news is, shall we say, disappointing. It seems the new world-terrain system is the monkey in the wrench of the PvE-focused expansion, and it has introduced a fair bit of instability into the updated client. With six months of work already invested in the expansion, much of it going towards sorely needed tweaks like dungeon and monster revamps, Aventurine is taking a cautious approach and sticking with the "not until it's ready" mantra.
Get your Darkfall Fun Hulks this summer
If you've ever wanted to toodle around the world of Agon on a one-man sled with a huge cannon mounted on the front, Aventurine has the summer update for you. While we'll stop short of categorizing the Greek developer's PvP-centric Darkfall as a whimsical game, there is no denying the fact that its developers are packing a sense of humor into the title along with all the blood spurts and horrific sound effects. Resfelm, Aventurine's community liaison, brings us word of a new craftable vehicle called the Fun Hulk, and while it's not green, prone to fits of anger, or the star of a bad Ang Lee film, it does feature the aforementioned cannon and is much easier to craft than a full-sized warhulk. In addition to the vehicle, Darkfall's devs are introducing new items called Use Flags (which when used in conjunction with your new ride) provide you with the tools to set up your own starting line, finish line, and waypoints. This being Darkfall, player racing events are more likely to resemble Death Race 2000 than Mario Kart, as the Fun Hulks can damage other Fun Hulks and can take damage from anything.
