The folks at Darkfall have posted a collection of first impressions, both positive and negative, of the early stages of the Darkfall Beta.

Before the next wave of testers we thought it would be a good idea to post a representative sample of quotes from the current testers taken from an unsolicited first impressions thread in the beta forums. In doing so we cooperated with the testers in order to get a good balance of the good and the bad. I posted this update in the beta forums last night, and asked for help in order to make it a fair assessment of the experience so far. Everyone had the opportunity to pitch in and they seem to agree that the resulting preview accurately represents the sentiment of the testers.

Having said that, I have to mention that our tester sample so far is diverse. The testers range from our biggest fans to our biggest critics, and from near “carebears” to the most hardcore players out there.

Most of these comments are first reactions. Many of these have changed over the course, mostly for the better. There are many topics that haven’t been addressed enough to get a good sample of quotes on. We’ll post more when we feel we have a good balance of feedback. We’re also asking for feedback on specific topics to be used in subsequent updates. The lack of comments on some topics are due to the fact that the players are in the starting phases of their characters, and we wipe often so they haven't been able to advance enough to test advanced options. This is about to change soon.

Read more here.

I can't trust this first impression.  1. its on the darkfall server.  2. they have a reputation of having people swarm forums talking about the game.  This could be a fake, its a Darkfall dev , it even says he's a dev.   How can you trust a first impression from someone who made the game?  How do we know these are quotes from real testers?   Before I trust a review about this game it would have to be done by a reputable game magazine or myself.  Now if IGN or Xplay did a first impression on the game then I'd trust it.  Until then I'll have to wait before I even get a little excited.

sounds like an Ad.

 It all seems completely genuine and believable to me, with  a fair amount of critique to boot.

All things considered though, it is generally sounding awesome, maybe not everyone's choice of gamestyle, but no game is. for people who want a game like darkfall was intended to be, it looks like they're gonna get it.

I can't wait.

I particularly look forward to the importance of fps skills and cunning tactics. This is gonna be something brand new...

Originally posted by Guintu

I can't trust this first impression.  1. its on the darkfall server.  2. they have a reputation of having people swarm forums talking about the game.  This could be a fake, its a Darkfall dev , it even says he's a dev.   How can you trust a first impression from someone who made the game?  How do we know these are quotes from real testers?   Before I trust a review about this game it would have to be done by a reputable game magazine or myself.  Now if IGN or Xplay did a first impression on the game then I'd trust it.  Until then I'll have to wait before I even get a little excited.

Ok I know people are saying this game is vapourware but do you honestly think they would string the fans along by making up a thread with different quotes?  I take it at face value and happy to see some good feedback but if its 'not' real and I am fool for believing it then so be it but if it is then it goes down as one of the biggest laughs.

If Darkfall comes out with what it promises I can see a huge amount of population from AoC, WAR and WOW migrating over.  On a personal level nearly all my friends are playing one game or another and there is one common theme going on.  Each one wants to play DF more than anything else and will dump their game 'if' it comes out. 

Finally some conformation that the beta is ongoing.  Sounds like the game is pretty stable.  That is excellent news.  And sorry Chryses, but this type of game will never see a huge population.  Most of those players from AoC, War and Wow will leave the first time their corpse gets looted.  It is a harsh world and most of those players will not put up with that.  That is ok, better to have it this way then the easy mode of those other games.

Originally posted by chryses

Originally posted by Guintu

I can't trust this first impression.  1. its on the darkfall server.  2. they have a reputation of having people swarm forums talking about the game.  This could be a fake, its a Darkfall dev , it even says he's a dev.   How can you trust a first impression from someone who made the game?  How do we know these are quotes from real testers?   Before I trust a review about this game it would have to be done by a reputable game magazine or myself.  Now if IGN or Xplay did a first impression on the game then I'd trust it.  Until then I'll have to wait before I even get a little excited.

 

Ok I know people are saying this game is vapourware but do you honestly think they would string the fans along by making up a thread with different quotes?  I take it at face value and happy to see some good feedback but if its 'not' real and I am fool for believing it then so be it but if it is then it goes down as one of the biggest laughs.

If Darkfall comes out with what it promises I can see a huge amount of population from AoC, WAR and WOW migrating over.  On a personal level nearly all my friends are playing one game or another and there is one common theme going on.  Each one wants to play DF more than anything else and will dump their game 'if' it comes out. 

Did I mention anything about me thinking its vaporware?  I don't think I said any such thing.  I just said a dev wrote the piece and said he quoted people from the beta which I don't trust.  Its like a commercial for a movie that lists out all the reviewers that liked the movie, only to find out that their were more reviewers that didn't.  This person could have picked and chose who said good things while leaving out all the bad.  Also he could have just made all of it up. This company does have a thing about sending out people to different mmo sites to make up things and then slam people for talking negative.  

I'm not saying the game isn't coming out.  I'm just saying until I read something from a reputable reviewer or unless I play it myself I don't trust it.  I'm like this with most games and movies, because I know people can get cought up in a game they really want to play and they'll back it even if they haven't seen it with their own eyes.  I've seen some videos and some that look like they might be game play videos, but no full battles, no major game play, no full scenes.  Its like watching a commercial on a movie and their a bunch of cut scenes of just the action.  Its hard for me to get excited about that.

I keep thinking of the game Dark and Light.  I wanted that game to be good for the longest time.  I watched videos and I heard what people were saying about it but in the end it just sucked.  I won't let myself get sucked in again, so until I read a real review, and see real game play or play the game myself I choose not to take what a dev writes about the game.

yeah it is hard to take this seriously since it was written by a Darkfall developer. He is nitpicking everything saying its all great (for example he says archery is great ...... but he didnt mention the other areas of combat). A regular player i dont think would do this. What i'm trying to say is that this impression is extremely biased.

Originally posted by tvalentine

yeah it is hard to take this seriously since it was written by a Darkfall developer. He is nitpicking everything saying its all great (for example he says archery is great ...... but he didnt mention the other areas of combat). A regular player i dont think would do this. What i'm trying to say is that this impression is extremely biased.

actually there were many complaints.. even about archery.. so im guessing you didnt read the whole thing

Why would anyone who is hyping a game post a fake group of impressions that have a fair amount of articles about what is wrong with the game? If he was really faking it why not just put how great everything is and make it sound like the perfect game. The one argument I see everyone throwing around is "This is another Dark and Light, hes out to get peoples moneys!!!" then why would he not offer pre-orders? How can him releasing a game be bad for anyone? People need to look at things logically and see that theres no reason for him to lie.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Finally some conformation that the beta is ongoing.  Sounds like the game is pretty stable.  That is excellent news.  And sorry Chryses, but this type of game will never see a huge population.  Most of those players from AoC, War and Wow will leave the first time their corpse gets looted.  It is a harsh world and most of those players will not put up with that.  That is ok, better to have it this way then the easy mode of those other games.

Is that what you think? Less players equal more fun? Seems like, if there is no players to play Darkfall it will suck to be you.Full loot or not. You be playing all by your self.I seen games with out full loot just slowly fading away.Come to think about it..I read on theses forums for players to come back to play..War Hammer and Aoc comes to mind here .It must really suck not to pawn and loot if there is no players..Awwww well what you going todo when there No Darkfall Players pawning  for you?

I do agree on one thing.This game will not see a huge population.But in again, when Taos needs money, there will be a change in there program for sure.You can really kiss the full loot good-bye.Since allot of players dont like full loot.They (Darkfall) will have todo something to bring more revenue in.

Originally posted by Roosevelt

Why would anyone who is hyping a game post a fake group of impressions that have a fair amount of articles about what is wrong with the game? If he was really faking it why not just put how great everything is and make it sound like the perfect game. The one argument I see everyone throwing around is "This is another Dark and Light, hes out to get peoples moneys!!!" then why would he not offer pre-orders? How can him releasing a game be bad for anyone? People need to look at things logically and see that theres no reason for him to lie.

Ummm why would he put in a few negitives, to make it seem more real.  Reading it I got the idea that he wanted to say "sure the game is flawed, but its still awesome".  I'm just more of an "I don't believe it till I see it" type of person.  If the game comes out and its good, awsome, I'll play it.  BUT if it comes out and it sucks then everyone who hyped it is going to feel dumb.  And IF it doesn't come out at all then their going to feel even dumber.  I've just seen a lot of hyped games either flop or not come out to learn my lesson not to believe what I hear.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Finally some conformation that the beta is ongoing.  Sounds like the game is pretty stable.  That is excellent news.  And sorry Chryses, but this type of game will never see a huge population.  Most of those players from AoC, War and Wow will leave the first time their corpse gets looted.  It is a harsh world and most of those players will not put up with that.  That is ok, better to have it this way then the easy mode of those other games.

Wasn't people saying Vanguard was stable well at least till the NDA was lifted.

Originally posted by EndDream

Originally posted by tvalentine

yeah it is hard to take this seriously since it was written by a Darkfall developer. He is nitpicking everything saying its all great (for example he says archery is great ...... but he didnt mention the other areas of combat). A regular player i dont think would do this. What i'm trying to say is that this impression is extremely biased.

 

actually there were many complaints.. even about archery.. so im guessing you didnt read the whole thing

no, i stopped when he mentioned every little tid bit. Because it just confirmed what i was expecting.

Originally posted by Guintu

Originally posted by Roosevelt

Why would anyone who is hyping a game post a fake group of impressions that have a fair amount of articles about what is wrong with the game? If he was really faking it why not just put how great everything is and make it sound like the perfect game. The one argument I see everyone throwing around is "This is another Dark and Light, hes out to get peoples moneys!!!" then why would he not offer pre-orders? How can him releasing a game be bad for anyone? People need to look at things logically and see that theres no reason for him to lie.

 

Ummm why would he put in a few negitives, to make it seem more real.  Reading it I got the idea that he wanted to say "sure the game is flawed, but its still awesome".  I'm just more of an "I don't believe it till I see it" type of person.  If the game comes out and its good, awsome, I'll play it.  BUT if it comes out and it sucks then everyone who hyped it is going to feel dumb.  And IF it doesn't come out at all then their going to feel even dumber.  I've just seen a lot of hyped games either flop or not come out to learn my lesson not to believe what I hear.

I completely agree. The only safe side to be on about this game is the skeptic fan. Sure Ill play it if they live up to their promises and its an actual quality game. However I wont just take everything Tasos says at face value, and set myself up to be disappointed that they didnt follow through.

When I first read about Darkfall quite a few years ago I was all but Drooling. UO was my first and I played it for 7 years almost consistently. All the other many many MMOs have lasted less than 6 months(some less than a month). Then I realized two things. First, Indie MMORPGs blow(Roma Victor), and that this game was "never going to be released". It seems more likely to see a release date now, but I haven't changed my mind about Indie MMOs yet. Indie puzzle games are fine, but you can't make a good MMO without money because without money you have no population.

As for this news item: I like what I read, but you can find thousands of gamers who like almost anything no matter how bad it is. When it comes to medieval MMOs you can almost triple that number. I still doubt this game will amount to anything, but I am rooting for it. Two things that stood out to me, well three actually, were all related to PvP Combat. It seems like this game will be similar to an FPS in that you really have to rely on seeing your enemy to be aware of him and that there won't be any names floating overhead. The idea of wearing non-shiny armor to ambush another player at night because there are no reflections just sounds fantastic to me. I have to wonder if these geeks were taking advantage of actual game mechanics or just "role-playing" though. I hope it is the former. The same goes for ducking behind objects on the road to get the jump on someone. The third thing has to do with PvP looting. I love the fact that it sounds like UO-Style open looting more than anything else, but I also love the fact that the dev seemed to indicate they will side with gamers who want the slow click-and-drag looting. I never realized how important it was to balancing open looting with pvp. I was unhappy to hear there are mount statues though, I really think mounts shouldn't be something you can pull out of your ass, at least not unless you are near some sort of stable.

Lastly, the thing about the glacier hopping also peaked my interest. My favorite memory from playing AoC for the month and a half that I did, was an early quest in Cimmeria where my group and I had to hop rocks on the edge of a very very high cliff to get to a boss without going through the massive amounts of enemies in our way. One wrong move to the left and you fall to your death, and one wrong move to your right and you aggro 10 enemies and mini-bosses.

 I hope these full-looters are not thinking everytime they kill someone they will get loot/items from the corpse. Bleh, I've already said to much ....

This remember me about AOC and DX10, i don't trust before i see !

Darkfall is fake i think.

Originally posted by Guintu

I can't trust this first impression.  1. its on the darkfall server.  2. they have a reputation of having people swarm forums talking about the game.  This could be a fake, its a Darkfall dev , it even says he's a dev.   How can you trust a first impression from someone who made the game?  How do we know these are quotes from real testers?   Before I trust a review about this game it would have to be done by a reputable game magazine or myself.  Now if IGN or Xplay did a first impression on the game then I'd trust it.  Until then I'll have to wait before I even get a little excited.

Lol, a bit paranoid, ain't you?

But sure, they probably didn't show us the worst ones, would you if you were the dev?

LOTRO also showed up a lot of first impressions during CB, they only showed the good ones too.

At least the game do actually exist, that is some good news (base that on the beta leaks I seen that fast disapear again.

You can trust that people are having these impressions, but there should also be some bad you won't see. Anyways, the only one you really should trust is yourself, relax until you tried it

Originally posted by Roosevelt

Why would anyone who is hyping a game post a fake group of impressions that have a fair amount of articles about what is wrong with the game? If he was really faking it why not just put how great everything is and make it sound like the perfect game. The one argument I see everyone throwing around is "This is another Dark and Light, hes out to get peoples moneys!!!" then why would he not offer pre-orders? How can him releasing a game be bad for anyone? People need to look at things logically and see that theres no reason for him to lie.

I think you need to look at things logicaly. What is the number one objective of any bussines? Right, make money for the share holders. Thats one good reason to 'lie'. Except most logical people are not saying he's lying. What they are saying is as head honcho he will be midfull of the companies 'prime directive' when collating quotes to include in his 'representative sample'.

There is still some intresting info there if you read between the lines.

Originally posted by Gorilla

Originally posted by Roosevelt

Why would anyone who is hyping a game post a fake group of impressions that have a fair amount of articles about what is wrong with the game? If he was really faking it why not just put how great everything is and make it sound like the perfect game. The one argument I see everyone throwing around is "This is another Dark and Light, hes out to get peoples moneys!!!" then why would he not offer pre-orders? How can him releasing a game be bad for anyone? People need to look at things logically and see that theres no reason for him to lie.

 

I think you need to look at things logicaly. What is the number one objective of any bussines? Right, make money for the share holders. Thats one good reason to 'lie'. Except most logical people are not saying he's lying. What they are saying is as head honcho he will be midfull of the companies 'prime directive' when collating quotes to include in his 'representative sample'.

 

There is still some intresting info there if you read between the lines.

yea theres probly some worse ones. but im not seeing the leaks about it atm. and most leaks i see are ussly bad

Their is another thing to think about if and when the game goes gold.  Are there going to be hacks like in most other FPS'.  I'm saying FPS because this is more like an FPS where their will be wall hacks and auto aim hacks and such rather than bots.  Every FPS I play on a PC has some pretty bad hacks and those will ruin the game if they don't figure out a way to make it hack proof (which is virtually impossible).  This is why the more and more online games I play on the PC I think it would be best to just have them on consoles because their harder to hack.  CoD 4 on the PC is full of hackers while CoD 4 on the Xbox 360 doesn't seem to have many if any.  I love playing single player games on the PC but multiplayer games are getting to be a bore because of all the cheaters.

The developer said there was a 'wide range' of impressions from good to bad and hardcore to carebear. There were a couple of 'grumbles' about minor things like keybindings or minor archery related issues but there was no negative side stated. (Okay, way down the list the new player learning curve didn't get rave reviews but that was it for the really negative).

I do hope the game does well, but those posts were most definitely skewed towards 'This game is great'. I did read 90% of it (Just skimmed the part about crafting) and the reviews were 'pro' game versus an 'all comments good or bad'.

Disappointing.

I'm liking the positives and negatives I'm reading.  It sounds like it still requires some tuning, but overall a great time.  Looking forward to more from Darkfall.  Like I have thus far, I'll look in on it once in a while to see how it's doing and if it's ready for more attention from me hehe.  Thanks for the post!

Here's a breakdown of the feedback in that thread, per category:

• Overall Impressions - Positive
• World Graphics/Technology- Glowingly positive
• AI - Positive
• Controls - Negative
• PvP/Looting - Positive
• Crafting - Meh

• Darkfall seems to be hard and the testers like it that way
• Darkfall is a PK game, not for the weak of heart

~Ripper