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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Darkfall Set For Launch 80

Posted by Soulskill from the super-fast-dev-cycles dept.
Darkfall, a PvP-oriented MMORPG that was first announced in 2001, is finally in the process of going live. After dealing with some launch-day bugs, the Darkfall team reports that servers are going up, and they're processing pre-orders to get players in the game. MMOCrunch has an in-depth write-up from the end of the beta, saying that the game is still "rough around the edges," but also that the team has created a "solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time." Ten Ton Hammer had a similar reaction, tempering criticism with praise for the lack of hand-holding.
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Darkfall Set For Launch More

Darkfall Set For Launch

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  • WOW (Score:1)

    by iYk6 ( 1425255 )

    First Spore, then Wine 1.0, and now likely Darkfall? Next we'll have pigs flying, hell rising, and finally Duke Nuke'm Forever.

  • According to the Ten Ton Hammer preview, this game features rampant kill stealing and quite possibly the worst community of any MMO, ever.

    That's a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one. Hooray for yet another niche PvP game.

    • Re:Well, this has it all (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Thursday February 26, 2009 @10:38AM (#26998621)

      According to the Ten Ton Hammer preview, this game features rampant kill stealing and quite possibly the worst community of any MMO, ever.

      I hate to say this, but a lot of people like drama.

      And not the BBC kind... The one with women in too much makeup with orange skin arguing over inane shit in Los Angles kind.

      Its what America needs.

      • Ways to fix these problems:

        1. Player jumps in front of another's swing to force him to go red for hitting a friend

        If player is fighting an NPC and someone jumps in front of them, then set the jumper red rather than the other way around.

        2. Player loots another's kill

        If player loots a kill he had nothing to do with, he goes red to everyone who attacked that monster. Note this is not vice-versa, so the other player(s) have the option to attack...or not.

        Of course, people will jump in and make one hit at the la

  • Darkfail. (Score:5, Informative)

    by juuri ( 7678 ) on Thursday February 26, 2009 @07:52AM (#26996557) Homepage

    Since leaving WoW quite a bit ago for numerous reasons, most of which they have fixed (still haven't gone back or played the new expansion) I've played nearly every MMO beta/pre-beta/alpha there is out there.

    Nearly all of them.

    I'm not sure what brought on this bit of self torture as there are more out their then most would think. How many in the last year? Five? Ten? Twenty? Nope. At last count I've played about *forty* different ones in the past year+. While their have been a couple of standouts all of them are going to fail for one reason or the other... which brings us to DarkFall.

    Most important reason for failure: Community. You've never, and may probably never ever, have encountered such a bunch of sycophantic whiney idiots this side of an AOL USENET Lover's support group. They can see no wrong in their golden messiah of an MMO. Even worse the mere mention of another game will bring their misguided wrath upon you with more 3 letter acronyms and twelve year old new speak than one may believe possible. While this is a bit funny for a while, it quickly becomes more a cause for murder or suicide, much like realizing you are trapped in an elevator with Carrot Top, while on acid.

    Secondly: Graphics. Well okay I get it, some people don't need any sort of graphics to enjoy a game. This too is easy to understand, I've ascended a few characters in NetHack. However the level of graphics must fit the current baseline or at least try to master the best in the genre. DarkFall has terrible graphics for an MMO released in 1995. The world is barren. Character movements are stilted. The art style is like a tribute to the Quake 1 engine. Spell effects are personally quite a stand out to me as they instantly remind one of the beautiful effects from PS1 games. Ahhhh nostalgia in an MMO!

    Third: The company creating the game has no idea how manage a community. For all of their ills at least Blizzard somewhat gets it now. I'm sure many will say differently... but if you had played all the swill I've encountered while subjecting myself to this MMO horror fest you would find yourself amazed at just how effing brilliant Blizzard is compared to the others. Most of these companies treat their community like the enemy, have no concept of communication and try to invent new ways to drive players away. DarkFall is no different here, except they get bonuses for trying to mask their failings with "spooky mysterious secrecy".

    Fourth: Awww. Fuck it. This is a terrible game, but it does represent a step up for Runescape players

    Not that anyone asked but the only game I've played that deserved to be played for the actual story/game/world was Spellborn. But both the developers and their idiotic publishers have doomed this to fail before most people will ever even play it... and Atlantica is a solid game if you can get past their incessant pushing for making you play nearly every day.

    That said, a number of the upcoming Chinese MMOs aren't really that bad. Unlike the Korean ones they don't shove the item mall down your throat. Most of them are lacking somewhat in proper stories, translations, lore, but there is some okay gameplay out there. See Perfect World for where the better Chinese MMOs are headed for the English speaking world.

    • much like realizing you are trapped in an elevator with Carrot Top, while on acid.

      Do I get a knife?

    • Seems you merely played the closed beta or the first week of the slightly less closed beta. The game evolved a lot over the second beta and is most definitely worth playing now... even with sycophants like your self running-a-muck.

      • sycophants (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I don't think that word means what you think it means.

    • Curious, the review at MMOCrunch (TFA) actually made it sound really interesting and even fun. But good to hear multiple opinions about a game. Not that I have time to play an MMO these days anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is not a step up from Runescape.

      To this day I can still count off the top of my head the fun quests Runescape had, Darkfall doesn't have charming or well made quests.

      Runescape crafting and resource gathering required a lot of clicks but the system was a lot more engaging for multiple reasons.
      In Runescape you had to move from one location to another to gather and craft. In Darkfall gathering was possible in one spot. You may not even leave your starter city for a few gathering tasks.
      Crafting requires mo

    • Perhaps you should write regularly for an online magazine somewhere. 40+ MMO betas in the last year? Wow.

  • My review. . .as if any of you care (Score:5, Informative)

    by holychicken ( 1307483 ) on Thursday February 26, 2009 @10:13AM (#26998239) Homepage
    I got into Beta over a month ago.

    The good:

    I like the fact that one can start a fresh character, jump into the game and immediately start to contribute to the cause. Sure, if you are a noob, you will suck, but that is only because you suck, and not just because your character is worthless gimped.

    I like the combat. It is shallow, at least to start, but it is FPS based instead of target-based. I found myself in WoW staring at my bars waiting for CDs to expire. In DF, I have to focus on the screen and lead my target with my spells and archery. I couldn't play a caster or ranged DPS character in any MMO before because of the targeting system made it boring. But DFO makes ranged DPS very entertaining. Melee isn't much more than a knife fight in an FPS, but, honestly, I kind of like that.

    Full loot. Some might not like it and I thought I wouldn't, but the rush I get from pretty much every PvP encounter in this game is unlike any I have experienced before.

    The Bad.

    Forum community is terrible and childish. But, honestly, I find that to be true with EVERY forum of an MMO. I haven't had much of a problem with griefing in the game itself, but it was only beta. . .so who knows what will happen at release. My guild however is one of the most fun I have been in.

    Combat lack of depth. I can see this being a deal breaker for a lot of people. It doesn't bother me at all, but it could have a bit more going on.

    Crafting/Harvesting is boring and just terrible in general. Harvesting literally is just sitting there clicking every ten seconds. Or, having a macro do it will you go walk the dog, get something to eat, take a dump, molest the girlfriend, masturbate to gay pr0n.

    Company inexperience. Everything has been botched for the past few months from a company perspective. Pre-orders pretty much blew up. They have little communication with the community as to what is happening. They announced a release date, didn't say anything for a month, until the week before release they said it would be delayed. It was supposed to launch around noon EST yesterday, didn't launch until 2 in the morning and the servers went up and down all night.

    Graphics are "eh" at best.

    All that being said, when the pre-orders went up, I spent 3 hours refreshing the page waiting for it to work so I could get in on this game on the ground floor. To me it like an entirely fresh genre and I have enjoyed my time playing the game. It has some SERIOUS problems right now, but I think that if and when they are able to sort them out, this will be a great game. I wish I were at home playing right now instead of at work. . . but I guess that ain't saying much.
    • I'm wondering if you could go into more detail on how the "full looting" effects you. When you said you get "the rush", I quickly relate that statement to dueling in Diablo II "Hardcore Mode". How challenging is it to get back on your feet after a PvP death? In D2HC, it was press escape, delete your character and start again from scratch. I'm assuming it isn't the same here, but seriously how is it? Also, does anyone know if there will be a purchasable DVD? I'm in Iraq and there is a 0% chance I'll be able

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by holychicken ( 1307483 )
        Didn't play any Diablo II so I have a hard to relating to it. But full loot is full loot. Everything you have on your character when you die is fair game to anyone who happens to come along and find your grave before you do.

        I have always had another set of gear in the bank so that when I die, I can just run to my bank and grab the other set out. . . but there have been times I have been naked, or close to it. Crappy gear drops all over the place so you are rarely stuck for very long with nothing on. .
        • Very interesting, thanks for the informational response. Being a EU release, this is still playable by people in the US right? (Just gotta purchase it online to flag your account, then connect to the EU servers?) I'm just imagining all their servers are geographically located in Europe at the moment. If I was able to get a buddy of mine back home to download it and snail mail me the install files, would I be able to play? Thanks again for the info, I greatly appreciate it.
          • Yup, you can play. But the release is currently limited and they are temporarily sold out. So you would have to wait at least a little bit.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by geekoid ( 135745 )

          Full loot is why I won't play it. I ahd my fill of that from online games in the 90's.

          get something new and cool? better not wear it, your a target.
          Cross a loading zone? watch out your going to get jumped.

          One of the key reasons WoW is successful is bacause Blizzard understand the death is it's own penalty.

          The your going to ahve to deal with people that jump on the corpse before you do when you kill someone.
          And of course when fighting someone and getting low and health a third party will appear and finish yo

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by drsquare ( 530038 )

            Have you considered that they're not aiming at the WoW carebear demographic? None of this of course excuses the game from being shit, but there's already a WoW with it's non-looting and few to no death penalties, there's no need to make another one.

          • that is relatively the same as in lineage 2. again, this game isnt meant for carebear players. if you run around ganking people all day, you're going to get a reputation as a shitbag and everyone is going to in turn gank you (trust in karma). thats what makes these games so much fun. sure, you can complain that its bad design, but frankly this is exactly what lots of people want to play...a game where the gloves come off ;) i really cant wait to play.

  • Darkfall Survival Guide (Score:4, Informative)

    by Gotung ( 571984 ) on Thursday February 26, 2009 @11:36AM (#26999429)
    I have put together a guide for new players.

    Here: Darkfall Survival Guide [dfguide.com]

    Uploading my first video to Youtube atm. Will link from the site soon.

  • so all the WoW haters are praising it.
    Any site that's not known for slamming WoW got a review?

  • The game is pretty useless.

    The big draw of the game for me (and lots of others) was that PvP would take individual skill and take a lot of factors of your person into account. Some intelligence, some coordination, and mostly the ability to skillfully defeat an opponent.

    The game has NONE of that -- it's "click click click" your left mouse button in the hopes that the server syncing will let you land a shot on the other guy. The depth of the game is zero, and "skill" is almost entirely based in the coordinati

  • Is here: http://www.gameolosophy.com/Games/Online/Darkfall-Online-Beta.541609 [gameolosophy.com]

    Enjoy folks, that is the best post on the game I have found yet.

  • No. This isn't flamebait. I think I'm on relatively safe ground here, raising an issue that is not one man's subjective analysis -- but a conclusion that almost any MMORPG'er would come to:

    This game has graphics that aren't up to Quake 1.0 standards. The game world looks absolutely devoid of detail, and the interface looks like an entry from an indie-games contest.

    With the massive number of MMORPG's being released (many free to play), why is this release even getting attention?

    If the answer is that its ga

  • About a dozen friends of mine and I had been awaiting Darkfall Online for quite some time. Many of us lurked in the forums for years. The listed features on their extremely limited webpage were enticing, and this from an old Ultima Online player. I missed the days of Pre-Trammel. From what they were saying, the Devs of DFO did too.

    Since shortly before release, I have been watching developments very closely, getting information from MANY sources, but primarily from beta tester leaks and forum posts.

    Here is

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