darkfall
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Darkfall city construction guide at MMORPG
Paragus put together a comprehensive guide to Darkfall's city construction on MMORPG.com. Darkfall seems to be following the Shadowbane school of urban planning: Every city exists in the open world, and each building demands a substantial monetary investment from the city's future inhabitants. Just to get up and running, the average Hamlet-sized city, which Paragus owns, will run about 38,000 gold, not including the wood and stone players need to harvest. The majority of the cost goes toward modules, which act as building blocks for new structures. Here's a cost rundown for a basic Hamlet: A Clanstone, which allows you to claim land: 10,000 gold. The Construction skill, which one person in the guild must have in order to build cities: 5,000 gold. Ten modules for the Bank,which must be erected before anything else can be built: 2,500 gold. Thirteen modules for walls, which Paragus claims don't actually protect the city from invaders: 3,250 gold. Twenty modules for two buildings of your choice, which increase the member limit on guild rosters: 5,000 gold. Fifty modules for your first resource unit, like a farm: 12,500 gold. What's more, the modules weigh quite a bit; most player's can't carry more than two at a time. Paragus goes deeper into the entire process at MMORPG.com, but Darkfall is keeping its hardcore promise when it comes to putting down stakes.
Darkfall impressions on mounts and guild politics
Paragus is back with another mini Darkfall review over at MMORPG.com. This time he's talking about mounts and politics.Mounts in Darkfall are quite a bit different than you'll find in other MMORPGs. The biggest difference is that you don't purchase them from vendors; they come from crafters who learn the "taming" skill. Mounts aren't just vehicles to get you from point A to B either; they can swim and attack (kicking and biting). They can also be stolen by other players, killed, and healed. The controls for mounts are excellent and you can actually attack other players with a one-handed weapon from the saddle.Darkfall's unrestrictive PvP also supports an interesting political system. Guilds can be neutral, allied, or at war with each other. You can even be at war with a guild of your own race. Guards won't intervene when you're fighting a guild you're at war with in a city either. This obviously leads to some complex relationships when you become allied with other guilds because you must factor all the guilds they're at war with.Anyone interested in Darkfall should also take a look at Keen's blog because he has been keeping a very detailed journal of his experiences.
One Shots: The darkness of Darkfall
While getting a hold of this game has really proved to be a pain in the butt, quite a number of people who have managed to get through have been pretty happy with the world they've found there. Today's Darkfall One Shots is the first reader-submitted screen we've gotten from this world, but we're looking forward to more as more people are able to get in and check it out. This one comes to us from Mark M, who writes: I just got into Darkfall today, and I dare say Aventurine has one of the most beautiful game worlds I have ever seen. The screenshot depicts my Mirdain elf homeland. I took this just before he set out into the harsh, blood thirsty world of Agon. The screenshot does not do the beauty of this game justice. This game world is definitely a labor of love!If you're one of the handful of people who have managed to get into Darkfall and really dig the game, we'd love to see some screenshots and hear about your experiences. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game, and a brief description of what we're seeing. We'll post them here and you'll get your chance to tell everyone just why you think the game is awesome. %Gallery-9798%
A copy of Darkfall: More evasive than a cheetah on speed
Darkfall may have launched, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to get your hands on it. The team at Aventurine is still holding a tight grip over the game's population and the sale of the game through the online store.Each day, the store is opening at an unannounced time to offer a limited number of copies of Darkfall to the players. Once their goal for the day is met, the store shuts down immediately and the prospective buyers with empty hands have to go home pouting until the next day. This has lead to some players becoming demoralized while others use their expertise to suggest solutions to Aventurine. It is an odd time on the forums indeed.Now, we here at Massively understand that finding the Darkfall shop is like finding a unicorn. If you're having trouble finding where the button to go to the shop is even located, it's on the account page after you sign in. After that, however, you're on your own. Good luck though!
Darkfall lays out a strict anti-macroing policy
There are no levels in Darkfall Online. Instead, they use a skill-based progression system. For example: the more you cast magic missile, the better your magic missiles become. Once your magic missile becomes good enough, you will be able to learn a more powerful spell. Obviously a system like this can be easily exploited by macro or bot programs, so it isn't surprising that Adventurine is taking a strict stance against any such exploitation. Of course, there are also the reports of speedhacking where players can run as fast or faster than sprint without losing stamina.Tasos does not define the term "macro" in the policy, so one must assume its definition is broad. A macro could be assigning several actions to a single hotkey (e.g., a combination of attacks in a particular sequence). A macro could also be a reactionary action (e.g., whenever you are cursed, auto-cast your "remove curse" spell). Anyone caught macroing or spamming spells in the safety of a city or tower area will be warned once, kicked, and potentially banned for repeat attempts. It doesn't seem like they'll punish macro-users in the riskier open-world unless the macros are unattended (generally called bots). Finally, anyone caught using third-party cheating, hacking, modding, or botting programs will be perma-banned no matter where they are.[Via MMORPG.com]
Darkfall's forums and chat brought down due to heavy traffic, servers finally online
Well the awaited hour has finally come true, Darkfall is online. While the delays have been numerous and the resulting traffic has basically crippled the Darkfall website, people are queuing up in the log in server to get a taste of what Agon has to offer them.The delay was due to two problems -- the pre-order load and the staff had caught a critical bug in the game at the last moment. The heavy volume of pre-orders had taken longer to process than Aventurine had anticipated, leading them to delay the launch so more pre-orders could be properly processed. Afterwards, they delayed the launch again due to the wish of the development team to fix that last bug.The heavy volume of players interested in the game's release had crippled the forums, shooting traffic to over double what it was at the launch of beta. Aventurine made the decision to bring down the game forums, instead only displaying a message regarding launch status on the forums page. This, in turn, brought more people into the Darkfall chat room run by Stratics, overloading that server and forcing Stratics to temporarily bring down the official chat.Aventurine plans to relaunch the forums sometime today, with the hopes that they can keep the system online under all the duress. All current subscribers (those lucky few with boxes) will be given 33 days of subscription time instead of 30 to cover for all the delays.
Darkfall prepares for launch, renewed sales of games
Today's the big day, Darkfall fans! The 25th of February has arrived and Darkfall should be fully online sometime this afternoon/evening as Aventurine flips the switch on their servers!This launch hasn't passed without problems though. First came the online pre-order page becoming swamped with traffic, leading to multiple credit card charges, people who never received their activation codes, and people who got codes but weren't even charged for the game. If you have had a problem with your pre-order, and wish to check the status of your account, you can always do so on the account management page. Be warned -- account management is under extreme stress from all the traffic and has been mostly down.Today, the heavily burdened website's forums have been up and down, with timeouts occurring as players pile in to see what the news is on the servers. Currently, as of the writing of this post, the servers are still down and unresponsive.Sales of Darkfall will also resume today, as Aventurine plans to start selling the game early in the evening, around the time the servers go live. No exact time has been given yet, but we'll keep our eye on the forums for any specifics given by the development team.
Massively week in review
Joystiq's sister site Massively.com has all the news you'll need about MMOs. Here's the best, brightest, and most interesting stuff from the last week, all in one convenient place for your MMO minute. Visualizing Free Realms: An interview with Art Director Rosie RappaportIf you've been following the development of SOE's Free Realms lately, you're probably pretty excited about everything it has to offer. If you haven't been following its development, check out our extensive coverage and exclusive interviews with its developers. Ready for even more exclusive interviews? Good, because just last week Massively sat down with Rosie Rappaport, the Art Director for Free Realms, to chat about the game's distinctive art style and the concept process involved. Massively's pre-launch interview with Runes of MagicWith the game set to launch in just about a month from now, we jumped at the chance to have a chat with the folks at Frogster concerning their much-anticipated fantasy MMO. Are they on track with this March launch date? How has beta reaction been so far, and what do they have to say about the growing concern that the game is "nothing more than a cheap WoW clone"?
Beware third party downloads for Darkfall
Brannoc, the community manager for Darkfall, has released an announcement today regarding downloading the Darkfall client from any group other than Aventurine. In a nutshell, he says don't do it. Aventurine cannot guarantee the quality of those downloads or what may be hidden inside of them. If you wish to download the Darkfall client, do so from Aventurine's official torrent.Brannoc's official announcement states, "Many people have begun to host the client we made available by torrent on other websites for direct download. Aventurine cannot guarantee the efficacy of these clients and make no guarantees as to their security or freedom of malware. For that reason we recommend only utilizing official download sources for the Darkfall client. Aventurine also does not support any 3rd party applications or programs for use with the Darkfall client. Anytime you utilize non-official resources you run a security risk for your system and for that reason we recommend you keep an up to date antivirus program and firewall software up and running. "
So, you think you're a hardcore PvPer, eh?
The Darkfall hype has shot through the roof these past few days. Since the NDA was lifted, many reviews have surfaced and they all say pretty much the same thing; Darkfall is technically sound but lacks content polish, and due to its core game design and griefing potential, will only really appeal to the hardcore PvPer. And by "hardcore PvPer," they mean pre-Trammel UO slash AC Darktide fans. Haaardcore.A few interesting blog posts popped up yesterday that bring something a bit new to the table. Tobold shared his Darkfall beta experience and suggested that while the game may find it's niche, it will be a very small one because most gamers prefer to play it safe. He points out that even in other PvP-centric games like EVE and UO, people tend to congregate in the safe havens if given the option. Scott Jennings also weighed in on hardcore PvPers. He believes people may appreciate the idea of hardcore PvP in the abstract, but tend to wuss out when push comes to shove. He cites past experience with the quick to rise and fall of PvP servers in DAOC. Finally, Keen lets us know that he finally got his pre-order after refreshing the order page for many hours. He shares a quote from lead Darkfall dev, Tasos, who says they are receiving 20 times the amount of web traffic to their order page than originally estimated.
Paragus' Darkfall beta review: Not your grandma's MMORPG
One of the very first Darkfall beta reviews we found came up only moments after the NDA dropped. Paragus, co-leader of the Inquisition guild and longtime MMORPG fanatic, shared his thoughts on the game over at MMOCrunch.com. It's quite a lengthy read and covers areas of the game such as character creation, user interface, the world, characters and animations, combat, quests, PvE, the alignment system, and corpse-looting.One commentor pointed out a few things the review was missing, including mounts, ships, mount and ship combat, class/skill balance, bugs, missing features, and the player-run economy. Still, we found it to be a very good overview of the game. Paragus suggests that Darkfall is not going to have mass market appeal, however, fans of old-school PvP MMOs like Ultima Online and Asheron's Call should find the game quite entertaining. Overall, he feels that while Darkfall may be a little rough around the edges, it features enough of a unique experience to be worth it. Paragus is also taking questions, so feel free to leave comments on his review.If you'd like a second opinion, why not check out what Massively's very own Colin Brennan has to say about his hands-on Darkfall experience? Also, share your thoughts on whether or not you plan to purchase Darkfall in our Daily Grind.
Anti-Aliased special edition: Hands-on with Darkfall
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Massively_com_gets_to_preview_the_PvP_action_MMO_Darkfall'; Aventurine was really kind enough to let us here at Massively have some play time on their game, Darkfall, and really get our hands dirty with it. Of course, I jumped to be first in line to get my account activated for beta and rush right into the world with my sword drawn.So far, I've played for the entire weekend, and all the time I can spare during the week except when I'm writing here for Massively, of course. I've made three characters to play around with the different races, been trying out all the different weapons and spells, did some investigations into guilds and crafting, and toured the countryside. So, as a warning, these are preliminary investigations of all of the things I could do at the beginning of the game, sans guild. Just like a true newbie to the world of Darkfall.So what's the final word? Well I guess you're just going to have to click the link below and find out.
Anti-Aliased special edition: Hands-on with Darkfall pt. 2
The goblins now haunt me in my sleep This was the point in my adventure when I was really fed up with goblins. Yet, apparently I still had to kill more goblins because even after those quests, I was sent to run 15 minutes away from the city with bad directions to this man who was surrounded by zombies and still wanted me to kill more goblins. What about the zombies? Is there no love for killing zombies? This was the point where I internally screamed and decided to go do whatever I wanted to do. That's what this game is about, right? This turned into a very short list which included exploring dangerous territory and/or killing whatever I found in said dangerous territory with my really weak sword. So I decided to do the smart thing and sit in town, casting magic missile over and over again just to level up my magic abilities without putting myself in danger. Going outside was just too much of a risk because I had no incentive to leave my main city and I could easily level my magic inside the city walls. The final verdictSo what's the word on Darkfall? Simply put, savior of MMOs this game is not. While combat is pretty nifty and lag free, the monster AI is pretty awesome, and the exploration factor is phenominal, this game has huge incentive problems. I wouldn't be so hard on the game if it wasn't in development for seven years. All resource nodes give the same stuff, so starting cities have the same nodes as hidden cities, and staying in a starter city to do your crafting is probably smarter. Quest givers have no indication that they give quests until you talk to them, there's only one quest line for each starting city (see "Killing Goblins" above, as it's the same quest chain for every race), and finding new weapons and armor is a giant pain when you have to run 6-10 minutes to find anything. Plus, if you die, you lose everything and get sent back to the last stone you bound to. Now you get to have the "joy" of running 6-10 minutes again, naked, and with a really bad sword if you were unfortunate enough not to stock things up in your bank. "I wouldn't be so hard on the game if it wasn't in development for seven years." Even owning a city as a guild gives little more than a new spawn point and the ability to kill people in your own city without penalty. Oh, and you can be sieged now, if you count that as a benefit. For every step forward it takes in regards to interesting sandbox play, it takes four steps backwards and impales itself, especially when you compare the game to EVE Online. You can do much of the same stuff in EVE that you can in Darkfall. My recommendation is that if you're a fan of a really punishing experience and are really into PvP combat, try it. The combat is well done, the monsters are fun, and the exploration is top notch. If you like quests and directed gameplay, this is not the game for you. This game isn't completely up the creek, however. As I said before, the exploration is wonderful and the vistas are great. If the game could approach sandbox gameplay like the Elder Scrolls series of games, players would be able to fall over interesting quest opportunities that get them to explore the game. That is exactly the approach this game should take to get the player population out into the wilderness and away from the safety of the cities. It's not a horrible game, it's just, at this moment in time, not worth seven years of development and all of the hype surrounding it. A few patches, a little grease to the wheels, and you might be looking at a very interesting sandbox game.If you have any questions about Darkfall and its gameplay, feel free to put them down in the comments and I'll try to get back to you with answers as soon as possible. I tried to cover as much as possible here in the article, but it's not always so easy to pack everything in. Or, feel free to e-mail me directly if you don't wish to comment. My e-mail can be found in the little blurb below. << Back to part 1 Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who is finally done with killing goblins. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's over running Epic Loot For All! with his insane friends. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com.
The Daily Grind: Are you going to purchase Darkfall?
The most highly anticipated game right now is Darkfall Online, the infamous PvP loot fest that's been in development for over seven years. Love it or hate it, it's making news pages sizzle with all of the hype surrounding it, as well as the question of if the game can live up to all of said hype.But today, we want to know if you're going to be grabbing the game or not. The world of Agon is going to need warm bodies in it to make the gameplay sell, just like EVE Online needs pilots in space to make everything work properly. Are you pre-ordering it maybe? Or are you adopting a " wait and see" attitude when it comes to putting money down on a brand new game. Or, are you just going to hope that they have a copy for you when the game comes out?Put your thoughts into the comment box below and the post button will chew up your words and spit them out onto our page for all of the world to view. Afterwards, we urge you to celebrate by chopping off a few ork heads and invading elven territory.
Darkfall's NDA has been lifted, system requirements given
Earlier this afternoon, the Non Disclosure Agreement for Darkfall Online has been lifted, in preparation for next's week's highly-anticipated launch. With this NDA lift comes complete information on the game's pricing, availability and system requirements.According to the announcement by Tasos, the European launch is still on track to happen next Wednesday, February 25th. North Americans are welcome to participate in the European launch, with North American servers coming soon. They say the option will come to migrate servers later. Continue reading below the cut for the complete announcement, and look for our own post-NDA coverage of Darkfall's beta coming soon from Massively.
Darkfall to launch with limited pre-order and launch copies
With Darkfall set to launch in Europe a couple weeks from now, MMORPG.com caught up with lead developer, Tasos Flambouras, for an interview. Things have been a bit quiet on the Aventurine front since late January, which Tasos attributes to them working furiously on getting the game ready for release and supporting thousands of beta testers.Several interesting things were revealed in this interview, including denial that they are planning on delaying release yet again, their plans to lift the NDA to give players enough time to make an informed decision, and that they aren't looking past the EU launch for a North American one just yet. The most interesting piece of information is that they plan to release a limited number of pre-order and launch copies of Darkfall to ensure their infrastructure can support the initial rush of players eager to get their hands on the game. This is a very different strategy than most MMO developers take. Usually, players are forced into long server queues or servers that can't handle the player load and crash frequently. This can lead to more servers being opened that spread the population too thin once the initial rush is over. Given Aventurine's strategy, you may want to keep your eyes on eBay if you miss out on a pre-order or launch copy.
The Daily Grind: What beta are you dying to get into?
With all the games in beta right now, there's a huge list going here at the Massively offices of what betas everyone wants in on. There's Jumpgate Evolution, Champions Online, Darkfall, Fallen Earth, and more coming into beta all the time - almost all of which have our interest right now. The coin-tosses in the virtual massively offices to see who lands which invites will be fast and furious, but to bring us to our question today... With so many interesting titles coming up, we know we can't be the only ones excited about all the new games coming. What beta - or betas - are you really hoping to get in to?
Aventurine speaks on Darkfall's "trial," forums, and pre-release patches
Darkfall's developer, Aventurine, has released a press statement that answers some of the questions swirling around the upcoming MMO. This update has given us some insight into what's going on with their forums, the status of the stress testing during their "trial" period, and what's changing and being added to Darkfall before their launch next February.The Darkfall forums have been under various Denial of Service (DoS) attacks which cripple their bandwidth, forcing Aventurine to take down the forums and re-work them to be stronger and more durable. As for the "trial," Adventurine has found issues with the patcher and login servers and is working to correct the sluggish download speeds.However, much of the release has covered the updates to the game, such as the addition the core attributes, a reskinning of the interface, more monsters, and the ambience/weather system is now enabled.With the NDA still in place, very little information has been released on Darkfall and the overall status of the game. It seems that with this release the NDA will continue to stay in place for a bit longer. For the full press release, check it out over at the Darkfall forums.[Via MMORPG.com]
The week in Massively features
Every week we take a bit of time to reflect. To look back on the last week's worth of content on Massively.com, and applaud the hard work of Massively bloggers. Read on below as we highlight the best original content posted to the site. You might want to shout at your monitor, or you might be thrilled by an upcoming game you've never heard of. You might laugh at us, or you might find a new favorite blogger. Either way, you'll find something you won't regret reading this week in Massively features. Checking in on Free Realms, just months away from Beta!Join us as we talk about their Diablo-style combat, their deep pet system, the role of innovation in 'kiddie' games, and a bit about their extensive collections system. We'll even get a sense of when Beta for this novel project will begin! Read on through below the cut for the full details. Massively interviews Champions Online's lead designerMassively recently had the chance to speak with Champions Online's intrepid lead designer, Randy Mosiondz. Topics included are the game's unique brand of action-combat (and how it differs from other games), a substantial achievement system, new mission structure and even what new and exciting travel powers would be featured come launch time. Anti-Aliased: The Darkfall propheciesDarkfall. Everyone talks about it. Our mailboxes get flooded with requests about it. Comments regarding the game are both frothingly energetic and intensely angry. Just writing a piece about it can get a writer wacked. Checking in with Warhammer OnlineIt's been a while since Warhammer Online was released and in that time we've seen a lot of crazy stuff happen. Namely, Wrath of the Lich King launched, became the fastest selling PC game of all time and rocketed World of Warcraft into an even high number of subscriptions. Massively's EVE Online new player guideIn the past few months, the column has been aimed at informing new and prospective players about the varied world of New Eden and giving them the helping hand they deserve in getting started. In this handy wrap-up (or should I say warp-up?) article, I've collected all of the articles aimed at new and prospective players into a set of handy clickable image links.
Darkfall unleashes first wave of invites
The latest news surrounding Darkfall should have some gamers whipped up into a frenzy -- the first wave of invites for clans and for individual testers has been sent out. Those for whom the pearly gates open will be able to download the Darkfall installer and patch their way in to the game. The announcement from Darkfall's creators, Aventurine, states that they're spacing out the invites to better accommodate the number of people they'd like to bring to test Darkfall. So if you haven't been invited yet, there's still hope that you may be; they'll be sending out more invites each day until they've hit their capacity. The NDA will remain in effect throughout this first phase of testing, however. The final bit of info Aventurine put out there deals with their website issues: the site and forums have been coping with denial of service attacks, which Aventurine is working to resolve... it looks like the PvP has begun before the game's even launched. [Via MMORPG.com]
