Let me be the first to say that I love MMORPGs.  I have been playing them somewhere between casually and hardcore for years, and have sort of grown up with the genre.  I started out with Dark Age of Camelot, and until a few days ago, was still playing it.  What I have realized, in the most unbias way that I can, is that the MMO genre and community is likely about to endure a revolution of sorts, very similar to when World of Warcraft launched.  Let me explain.

When World of Warcraft came out, all of the veterans of Everquest, Asheron's Call, and Dark Age of Camelot were clamoring about how bad it was.  I remember it clearly; I was one of them.  I thought World of Warcraft would be a massive failure, but its devoted fans knew better.  Clearly I was wrong at the time, and WoW is now the most financially successful MMO to date.  It has put MMOs in the mainstream to some extent.

The last few months the same sort of clamoring has begun, but this time I have been on the sidelines (in Camelot) watching.  The old school MMO players who dominated the late 90's and early part of the decade are about to become major players in the MMO community once again with the release of Dark Fall Online.  Sure, these players probably played WoW or a number of other popular MMOs in the last 5 years, but they havn't seemed at home, as evidenced by their attachment to forums (rather than playing an MMO).

My point is this: Just as the launch of WoW was revolutionary by marking a shift of MMOs from relative obscurity to mainstream, the launch of Dark Fall may finalize give rise to the first real competition to WoW since its inception.  I don't believe that WoW players will switch allegiance and love Dark Fall.  What I am saying is that all of the old shool MMO players that have been half-hearted in their MMOs for the last few years may finally find a true and realistic (in the danger sense) game to play.

I am not a Dark Fall or World of Warcraft fanboy, though I know a good deal about both games.  I am not claiming that Dark Fall will over take WoW or take all of its players.  All I am saying is that, from a historical perspectives, it seems as though old school gamers may finally have a medium through which to challenge WoW, which has dominated the genre for so many years.  Let the boxing match begin and the flames go wild, because pretty soon, the battle between WoWers and Dark Fallers will become an all out war.

-John

Darkfall is going to challenge WoW how exactly?  Darkfall sure looks like a fairly narrow niche game to me, of the sort that isn't a threat to anything but itself. 

I hope Darkfall does well and I really should wish all the games that try to bring some challenge into MMO good luck, especially PVP or former UO players.

I'm a pure PVE player though, EQ was never about PVP, so Darkfall will fall short for me. Maybe Tera Online will bring some good PVE back to mmo, I don't know.

thanks OP, i needed a good laugh today

Why don't we wait and see how this launch goes. I hope Darkfall succeeds.

I have talked to a guy in my Warcraft guild that I work with and he doesn't seem all that into the type of game Darkfall is. Granted he is fairly new to the genre but that can be a good thing as well.

Anyway, I consider myself an old-school gamer, from UO to present, but I have not "risen up". I just hope for a good game to release that can bring back the feelings I had when playing UO and EQ and AC and on and on.

Hopefully Darkfall will do just the trick.

Just wait till launch when Darkfall fails and all the complaints come in. We've seen this time and time again when the beta fanbois give reviews and say how amaizng it is then the game actually launches and everyone then turns to it's shit.

Just go look at gameplay videos to see how shit it looks.

This is what I was trying to get across in my post.  The super devotion of World of Warcraft players will clash with that of the Dark Fall players causing all out anger and ignorance toward each other.  Each group will refuse to believe that the other is a good group.  What is ironic is that all these "blah blah haha your post is teh fail" posts are the same kinds of posts that were made when people said WoW would challenge EQ/AC/DAOC.  Interesting to see that pattern replay itself.

I agree with much of what the OP has said.  However, I don't know if Darkfall can live up to this expectation.

I will be buying the game eventually, because I don't know what other players like and dislike, I only know what I like and dislike.  I'm willing to spend the money to see if this is the game for me (which I hope it is).

Except that more often than not the posts made claiming a new, major game will take over the market have been wrong. Warhammer, Age of Conan? Now you somehow think Darkfall falls under the exception to the rule that Warcraft was? For what reason?

What you fail to realize is that a revolution can rarely be visualized by current people. Precicely because a revolutuion represents a new way of thinking. Darkfall may be better (for sake of argument lets say it is) but its hardly different enough to warrant being a game changer. The difficulty is that MMO's also offer a social aspect that can make it very difficult to overthrow reigning champs, i.e. how many play WoW because everyone they know does?

That being the case I do think a revolution of MMO's will come that will replace WoW, but it ain't Darkfall.

For what reason?  Well, for one, Dark Fall is a non-linear world, without the protections of a game like WoW.  It also has a unique UI and a focus on PVP.  I don't think these things are better than WoW, but they appeal to the majority of players who stopped playing MMOs because they were all cookie-cutter esque (like AoC WAR, etc)

I don't play WoW and I havn't apart from just when expansions launch since 2005 because I got bored of it. However I respect that it is the best mmorpg on the market and you just have to look at all the reviews and how many people are playing and the buzz of the game to see that. Games arn't Mc Donalds, we play games for fun and people eat because they have too and Mc Donalds is the fastest thing when you're on the Lunch Break.

I've been playing mmorpgs long enough to not get drawn in by the hype of it being a sandbox game like all the ones that came before it. Just seems that some people don't learn their lesson. Just look at the gameplay videos to see how crap the game looks and will be.

I'm just smart enough to know that the game isn't going to be good.

Wait....I thought that DarkFall was only going to have a limited, Euro. release in Feb?  10,000 players only, right?

Considering that, the OP is suggesting:

1)  That a lot of "old school" (what does that even mean?) players are going to be disappointed, as they won't even be able to get the game.

2) or, that there are no more than 10,000 "old school" players out there.

3)  that somehow, most of those "old school" players now live in Europe.

4) and, that somehow, a 10,000 sub. game is going to dent/scare/be noticed by that 11mil sub. monster called WoW.

All of that just doesn't add up.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Just wait till launch when Darkfall fails and all the complaints come in. We've seen this time and time again when the beta fanbois give reviews and say how amaizng it is then the game actually launches and everyone then turns to it's shit.

Just go look at gameplay videos to see how shit it looks.

expect it to be on par with Dark and Lights release.  All ready even the fanboys are claiming the devs are gonna add in content that wasnt seen (or I should say tested) during beta to fill the void that is the game world.   When this doesnt happen, and it won't, even they'll be enlightened as to how these small game companies pull in pre-orders by BSng

Just like: Horizons, Anarchy Online, Dark and Light, Pirates of the burning sea, Asherons Call 2,.  All of those games had fanbois convincing themselves and everyone else that "theres no way in hell this can possibly be IT"  Only to find out after release that ..yes.. that IS it no matter how many months or years you wait.

I think if you're really an old school gamer, have been around the block and beta tested as many games as I have you can see the writing on the wall with this one.

Originally posted by BaconJA89

For what reason?  Well, for one, Dark Fall is a non-linear world, without the protections of a game like WoW.  It also has a unique UI and a focus on PVP.  I don't think these things are better than WoW, but they appeal to the majority of players who stopped playing MMOs because they were all cookie-cutter esque (like AoC WAR, etc)

WoW is a non linear world too and those protections are served to set some basic rules to stop low level ganking and griefing. I played FFA PvP and it is not fun because in reality all that really ever happens is people attack other people who don't have a chance against them. Even if a game doesn't have levels you still have that progression, only it isn't as clear cut.

Unique UI and PVP?

Yeh from what I saw the UI is HORRIBLE and the PVP looked really crap.  Badly animated, it was slow and boring and had poor effects and half the time they were running away from eachother.


Sure people don't like the cookie cutterness of WoW but I bet you after launch people will soon realise what are the best things to fight with and just use them over and over and then that game will be cookie cutter too. One guy always said fights come down to just how many pots or whatever you have....... sounds liek the boring fights of Jedi with how many Holocrons they have.

Darkfall is not the sandbox game we've been waiting for.

Please don't buy the game until it has released and the final word is on it.

Originally posted by Rayx0r

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Just wait till launch when Darkfall fails and all the complaints come in. We've seen this time and time again when the beta fanbois give reviews and say how amaizng it is then the game actually launches and everyone then turns to it's shit.

Just go look at gameplay videos to see how shit it looks.

 

expect it to be on par with Dark and Lights release.  All ready even the fanboys are claiming the devs are gonna add in content that wasnt seen (or I should say tested) during beta to fill the void that is the game world.   When this doesnt happen, and it won't, even they'll be enlightened as to how these small game companies pull in pre-orders by BSng

Just like: Horizons, Anarchy Online, Dark and Light, Pirates of the burning sea, Asherons Call 2,.  All of those games had fanbois convincing themselves and everyone else that "theres no way in hell this can possibly be IT"  Only to find out after release that ..yes.. that IS it no matter how many months or years you wait.

I think if you're really an old school gamer, have been around the block and beta tested as many games as I have you can see the writing on the wall with this one.

Oh I remember Dark n Light lol. I could see how bad it was going to be from a mile off, just because of the art in the game.

When are these guys gonna finally hire Artists?

The major reason I think that Dark Fall is going to be different and not flop or fail is it devoted fanbase.  This is exactly how WoW started out.  Does anyone remember WoW's first month?  It was sligthlt buggy, not even close too the number of features it currently has, and its playerbase was primarily "fanboys".  Those people supported the game and got it off the ground.

I don't think it even matters much if Darkfall succeeds or not, it has shown there's a market for open world sandbox gaming where quests don't dominate or dictate gameplay. Vanguard did the same thing. Showing there's a market for these games is already something that's positive.

WoW has in a way taken freedom and roleplaying and changed it with UPS gaming. And I'm not even hating on WoW, some people like the system WoW uses, but it's not what a good deal of players want.

In short, even if Darkfall doesn't deliver, it will have shown there's a market for unforgiving sandbox PVP, just like Vanguard showed there is one for PVE centric gameplay. The main thing is keeping this "genre" alive by showing that oldschool and new players are interested in something more than what WoW delivers in terms of gameplay. 

I agree waterlily.  The fact that this post/conversation has legs and is getting people interested/animated shows that there is interest.   A lot of the people who disagree with me (privately not on the forum) think that at the least Dark Fall may be like EQ in that it introduces a new MMO formula, but doesn't perfect it,  and leaves future MMOs to do that.

Originally posted by BaconJA89

The major reason I think that Dark Fall is going to be different and not flop or fail is it devoted fanbase.  This is exactly how WoW started out.  Does anyone remember WoW's first month?  It was sligthlt buggy, not even close too the number of features it currently has, and its playerbase was primarily "fanboys".  Those people supported the game and got it off the ground.

You do understand that WoW at launch, Age of Conan now, and Warhammer Online right now likely have much larger "devoted fans" that will never quit the game than Darkfall, right? DarkFall had 300k beta applicants, WAR and AoC each went over the 1 million mark. Those of us who have realistic expectations for this game understand that the "devoted" fan base that will never leave this game isn't going to be at 100k or anything like that. The numbers this game gets isn't going to be massive like other recent games at launch or still hold now.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Originally posted by BaconJA89

For what reason?  Well, for one, Dark Fall is a non-linear world, without the protections of a game like WoW.  It also has a unique UI and a focus on PVP.  I don't think these things are better than WoW, but they appeal to the majority of players who stopped playing MMOs because they were all cookie-cutter esque (like AoC WAR, etc)

 

WoW is a non linear world too and those protections are served to set some basic rules to stop low level ganking and griefing. I played FFA PvP and it is not fun because in reality all that really ever happens is people attack other people who don't have a chance against them. Even if a game doesn't have levels you still have that progression, only it isn't as clear cut.

Unique UI and PVP?

Yeh from what I saw the UI is HORRIBLE and the PVP looked really crap.  Badly animated, it was slow and boring and had poor effects and half the time they were running away from eachother.


Sure people don't like the cookie cutterness of WoW but I bet you after launch people will soon realise what are the best things to fight with and just use them over and over and then that game will be cookie cutter too. One guy always said fights come down to just how many pots or whatever you have....... sounds liek the boring fights of Jedi with how many Holocrons they have.

Darkfall is not the sandbox game we've been waiting for.

Please don't buy the game until it has released and the final word is on it.

I cant argue with most of what you said.
 

But you did say WoW is a non-linear world and i just have to LOL all over that one.
I dont think i ever heard the term Linear World in MMOs until WoW came out. WoW invented linear in MMOs. And also quest grinding for that matter.

Originally posted by safwd

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Originally posted by BaconJA89

For what reason?  Well, for one, Dark Fall is a non-linear world, without the protections of a game like WoW.  It also has a unique UI and a focus on PVP.  I don't think these things are better than WoW, but they appeal to the majority of players who stopped playing MMOs because they were all cookie-cutter esque (like AoC WAR, etc)

 

WoW is a non linear world too and those protections are served to set some basic rules to stop low level ganking and griefing. I played FFA PvP and it is not fun because in reality all that really ever happens is people attack other people who don't have a chance against them. Even if a game doesn't have levels you still have that progression, only it isn't as clear cut.

Unique UI and PVP?

Yeh from what I saw the UI is HORRIBLE and the PVP looked really crap.  Badly animated, it was slow and boring and had poor effects and half the time they were running away from eachother.


Sure people don't like the cookie cutterness of WoW but I bet you after launch people will soon realise what are the best things to fight with and just use them over and over and then that game will be cookie cutter too. One guy always said fights come down to just how many pots or whatever you have....... sounds liek the boring fights of Jedi with how many Holocrons they have.

Darkfall is not the sandbox game we've been waiting for.

Please don't buy the game until it has released and the final word is on it.

I cant argue with most of what you said.
 

But you did say WoW is a non-linear world and i just have to LOL all over that one.
I dont think i ever heard the term Linear World in MMOs until WoW came out. WoW invented linear in MMOs. And also quest grinding for that matter.

Which wasn't such a bad thing considering before that we just had straight mob grinding. At least the quests had given you something to read every now and again. And this comes from somebody who truly has a great dislike for WoW. If only we could find a median between the great quest grind and the great mob grind. This is where Warhammer succeeded for me, in that you could get your PVE level to rise through killing other players. You weren't forced to quest or grind to level up, you could do whatever you wanted.

Originally posted by Rayx0r

Just like: Horizons, Anarchy Online, Dark and Light, Pirates of the burning sea, Asherons Call 2,.  All of those games had fanbois convincing themselves and everyone else that "theres no way in hell this can possibly be IT"  Only to find out after release that ..yes.. that IS it no matter how many months or years you wait.

That happened with Vanguard as well. I remember a bunch of posts in the days and weeks leading up to release talking about how the game was still in beta/debug mode so not everything was in yet, and how everything would change once the game went live, because what people were playing right before launch wasn't the final release client.

Now, I'm not saying that DF will be like Vanguard. I actually played VG in beta. I knew what was coming down the pipeline, so I never bought it and just used a friend code to try it a few weeks after it went live. With Darkfall, I haven't played it and I've only got the beta reviews and YouTube videos to go by. However, I remember a lot of the same type of posts:

"X feature was turned off in beta, but the devs say it's been tested internally, so it should be fine when they add it later." 

"It's beta/debug mode! It's not what you're going to see when the game goes live!"

"This game is made for hardcore/old school gamers-- carebears and WoW kiddies gtfo since you can't handle it."

Maybe Darkfall will be different. Or maybe it will end up another game in the dustbin of MMO launches. We'll know next week when the game finally goes live, but I can't help feeling deja vu at all this.

This old school gamer has risen up and what I'm doing is pulling my money out of the MMO genre until somebody comes up with something that even faintly interests me.

Originally posted by Bountytaker

Wait....I thought that DarkFall was only going to have a limited, Euro. release in Feb?  10,000 players only, right?

 

Considering that, the OP is suggesting:

1)  That a lot of "old school" (what does that even mean?) players are going to be disappointed, as they won't even be able to get the game.

2) or, that there are no more than 10,000 "old school" players out there.

3)  that somehow, most of those "old school" players now live in Europe.

4) and, that somehow, a 10,000 sub. game is going to dent/scare/be noticed by that 11mil sub. monster called WoW.

 

All of that just doesn't add up.

You've played an MMO that was launched before the WoW themepark era began. At least that's my definition.