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The Daze of Darkfall Week 4: The terror of Agon
It's the last week already? Well that went fast! It seems like only yesterday when I woke up in a daze to find my computer had "Thank you for purchasing Darkfall, n00bcakes!" splashed across its screen. Yet, here we are, four weeks later! My clan's city now looks like a real place of habitation instead of a pile of smashed rubble, combat is starting to become more commonplace than one attack every week, and I'm actually wearing armor instead of being naked most of the time. Amazing how things change over time.This week's events seem to all come down to one sentence: "Are you concerned about the security of your stuff?" (NSFW) You should be concerned, as my clan's warbands were taking what they wanted from cities and hamlets, all with me in tow. What happens when I get exposed to "hardcore PvP?" Well I guess you'll just have to read and find out.
The Daze of Darkfall Week 3: Keep rollin', rollin', rollin', yeah
Hey there avid Darkfall readers! It's week three of The Daze of Darkfall, and that means we only have one week left in our feature! Time sure does fly when you're getting your butt kicked in defense of your city!And that is totally what I did this week! Yes, that's right, it's time for a real look into "hardcore" PvP and raiding! I was out in the PvE sections killing skeletons, I was defending our city against enemy invaders, and I was working with others in harvesting camps.So this is it. This is the cream of the Darkfall crop. This is what people say is the most amazing part of this game. Is it? Will it live up to the hype? Skip along with me after the break, and we'll go through week three, step by step.
The Daze of Darkfall week 2: AFK your way to fame and fortune pt. 2
Battles abound and a city under siegeOut in the wilderness with my clan, we wreaked havoc on newbie towns. Oddly enough, an unarmored newbie weapon carrying player is no match for four people in chain armor wielding crafted weapons. Who would have thought? Also, if you're AFK and auto-harvesting something, you suck at PvP. Just letting you know.In all of this madness, however, my party was lucky enough to stumble upon a person farming herbs. She too was AFK and felt our wrath, but what made this encounter so absolutely hilarious was the presence of a steedgrass on her person. One steedgrass lets you call a mount, so we effectively denied her a mount. Whoops.If that's not painful enough, another one of my colleagues reported that he had killed an AFK newbie, only to find a deed to a cottage on their corpse. He had just stolen a house from someone AFK. A house. I bet you never stole an entire house before.Later on that night though, I got my first real taste of PvP action. One of our members yelled that he spied an incoming force of about 15-20 people to our city, causing everyone to quickly rally. Of course, when I say "rally" I mean everyone stripped their armor and pulled out their staves. (Yes, I too feel as if I live in bizarro world.)As they ran up the side of our city, we began pummeling them with magic missles. I have to admit, the sight was pretty awesome to behold. 25-30 people all casting magic missiles at the enemy as they rode towards us on mounts was pretty fun. I can only imagine what it was like from their perspective, looking up to see this wave of blue bubbles flying at their mounts.Once they reached the city, however, everyone did what they could... while naked... to defend what we had. It wasn't a serious defense, as they didn't have a challenge against us for the city, so many deaths while naked were had. If we had been out somewhere, sure, we would have been wearing armor. But when someone comes in to our city trying to get stuff from our bodies, why give them the pleasure?It's at this point that I'd like to say we drove the enemy away with the stalwart defense of our territory, but it really came down to them getting bored killing naked people. Who can blame them, especially when we killed one or two of their people. We lost nothing (except our pride) but we gained everything (and by everything I mean two sets of armor and weaponry.) What lies in wait for next week? Things are starting to get heated in the clan. The generals want everyone combat ready, including the crafters. Plans are being created, swords are being sharpened, and our evil scowling practice is really coming to fruition. (No one can deny that the evil scowl is absolutely essential in battle.) This week looks like it's going to be a week of blood, and I'll make sure to report all of the lost limbs to you faithful readers next week.No time to go searching? Check out week 1 and week 3 without digging through the category!
The Daze of Darkfall week 2: AFK your way to fame and fortune
Confused as to why this isn't in Anti-Aliased? Well, "The Daze of Darkfall" month long feature has moved to a new home as a standalone feature! Isn't that grand? Now I can talk about my adventures in Darkfall while still unleashing my biased opinions upon you in Anti-Aliased. It's a win/win situation, if you ask me.So what's in the picture above? Well that's me AFKing my way to hardcore status in Darkfall. All you need is an old college textbook and a comb cleverly placed on your left arrow key and you too can get to max run skill with just a few nights of AFKing! Forget running into walls, this is the future! I like to call it "hardware macroing."But this isn't all, dear readers! I have lots more fun inside of this week's Darkfall report! Come, continue reading and enjoy the insanity of Agon, where AFKing is better than playing and naked is the new armored!
Anti-Aliased: The Daze of Darkfall
I'm still not exactly sure what I've done. I remember pressing a few buttons on the Darkfall website, a really long download, and then a very large splash screen appearing on my desktop with the Darkfall logo emblazoned across it.I think I downloaded and installed Darkfall. The North American version, in fact. I thought it was just going to be a one night stand between the two of us, but I guess I was wrong. Looks like I'm back in with the game and I'm going in-depth. This time around though, I'm going to do some things differently. There's going to be no reviewing and less critiquing. It's just going to be a straight up re-telling of my experience in the "PvP experience of a lifetime" with a little snark added in, of course. You guys be the judges of Darkfall this time.This week's events include jumping in with a brand new clan, getting the newbie experience all over again, and the capturing of a city. Exciting stuff, right? Come with me, I'll tell ya all about it.
Anti-Aliased: The Daze of Darkfall pt. 2
Capturing the city After running halfway across the main continent, I finally found myself in my new home. Albeit my new home is a broken wasteland of stone and rocks at the moment. My clan was very successful in grinding out the 10,000 gold to capture a city in under six hours, leaving us with a brand new piece of real estate in a suitable location. This is the part where things in my Darkfall experience began to get dicey. A city does not just fall into one's hands and just magically work. Construction needs to occur and buildings need to be built. Things like keeps and houses allow more clan members to bind their souls to the citystone, our new respawn point. But to get those, we need stone, and wood to start constructing. And to get stone and wood, you need resource harvesters. Or as I like to call us -- peons. No, honestly, I'm not tripping out and recalling a game of Warcraft or any other real-time strategy game. This is all still very much Darkfall. My job for a few play sessions was going out with a pick axe or wood axe and working to harvest resources for construction. You wouldn't believe how ungodly boring hitting a rock is. Or, well, maybe you could. And, commenters, I know what you're saying. You're saying that I should be out getting some PvP l33tsauce right now. Well, guess what, PvP l33tsauce does not build a city. Sure, I could go shoot and kill other people harvesting. But stone and harvest materials weigh you down and people to kill aren't exactly close to where I am. No, you can just go right outside the darn walls and start hitting trees/rocks. It's faster, it's more productive, you can move resources quickly, and it's not PvP. Sorry. Clan's current plans are to do some more harvesting and production as a group, then we're going to begin "training for PvP." Right now, training consists of beating the crap out of one another to raise defenses and attack skill. Not exactly what I think Aventurine had in mind to raise combat skills, but I don't see them stepping in to stop my entire clan. Beyond that though, I really am looking forward to raiding and doing some real combat. The thought of raiding another city is exciting, although it will take some time. End of part one Well, those are my experiences so far. More of my Darkfall experiences are coming next week, during week two of this month long in-depth look. Personally, Darkfall is a mixed bag right now. The menus still annoy me, the combat still intrigues me, the questing still sucks, the city building feels like a giant real-time strategy game (I enjoy being a commander more than a peon, but I think that's something everyone would agree on), but nothing's really happening. Darkfall's billed as one of the great PvP games, and so far I've seen one instance of PvP in the three days I've been playing. Granted, I could throw myself into PvP, but that just seems like a waste of my money, armor, and weapons at this point. Why PvP when it will cost you more than it will let you gain? Maybe things will turn around. Tune in next time, dear readers, to find out if they do.Hey, want to do the time warp? Check out week 2 and week 3 of The Daze of Darkfall! Colin Seraphina Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who thinks three hours of third-person harvesting is the bomb. When she's not writing here for Massively, she's rambling on her personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message her, send her an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow her on Twitter through Massively, or through her personal feed, @sera_brennan.
The Daily Grind: Have you re-rolled on Darkfall's NA server?
Fifty bucks isn't chump change in this economy, but it's what Aventurine is asking as the price of admission to their new North American Darkfall server. If you want in you need to purchase a brand new account, and that brand new account is the price of a brand new game.But, you get to play in a server that's starting from scratch. Everyone is once again on the same level, the cities were open for capture (briefly, then they all got taken,) and the mystery of the world has been re-opened. Aventurine has thrown down many fixes since the original launch, leading some people to call the EU server the "paid beta" while the NA server is the "true launch."What we want to know is what are your feelings, Massively readers? If you play Darkfall, have you gone over to the new server? Why or why not? Are you waiting for the transfer after three months? Even if you don't play, would you switch servers if the new server came with a 50 dollar price tag? Or would you jump onto Darkfall just to be in the new NA server?Comment away!
Darkfall's US server to launch today
Darkfall's first North American server, NA1, is due to launch today. The stage is set for the new server with the release of Darkfall's expansion, and July 13th is the date declared by both the website and the game's associate producer, Tasos Flambouras.However, beyond a single thread regarding how to download the new US client, the launch has been very quiet. The account page is now online, ready to take your payments of 49.98 for the brand new NA client. Edit: While the account management is working and you can create an account, the shop is currently offline and unable to take new purchases of the game.EU users interested in playing on the NA servers with their EU characters will still have to wait, however, as EU players will only be able to transfer to NA three months after the launch. Even then, EU characters will not be allowed to bring their possessions with them, transferring onto the server as a naked player. However, on the bright side, those who wait will not have to pay for a brand new account to play on the NA server.Update: The shop is now online. Have fun!
