I'm downloading the Darkfall client now (NA).  Do any current players have some tips to ease me into the first week?  I've read the forums and I'm prepared for some struggle early on, but no worries.

I tend to solo in a new game for a while and join a guild once I get my feet on the ground, but it seems that might be a tougher road in DF.  Any thoughts on staying alive solo, or should I really give that up and jump in with a guild?  I've read archery is good to level for hunting mobs.  Any other key skills to focus on?  Will the coming patch change what I should be doing at the start? 

And please, I'm not looking for discussion about how good or bad DF is - there are plenty of those threads and I've already decided to try it.  I'd like to keep it to people actually playing with constructive advice.

Thanks!

 Yea 

Bank often

Good luck!

 hey, i had it hard when i started to, best thing to do is find someone social and ask him, like i did :P,

it has a HUGE  learning curve, just hang on and youll get used to it and you might have loads of fun, when you die, you loose EVERYTHING,  so go to a capitol or other bank ofter to store gold/materials (for starters :) )  in the begin its really hard, taking on multiple enemies at once, just need to get the hang of it for a bit.  if you wanto get a good weapon, i went to a capital town and bought an expensive one, REALLY usefull both in pve and pvp :)). quests will help/explain a bit but not much,  hope you enjoy :)

regards, vlad

I've been playing for a few weeks now, and I'm still solo. I also prefer to start mmos like this to at least become knowledgeable and half decent at the game. Havn't gotten bored at all as I kill mobs all over the place, and I do a fair bit of crafting.

Don't mess around near the starter cities too long, you'll be ganked far too often. Once your capable of comfortably killing 2 or 3 goblins at a time, I'd move on. I use the Darkfall map from this site, it's been helpful.

www.afraidyet.net/forums/misc.php

I use a mix of archery and melee on the mobs. Definitely heavier on the archery side.

Someone else would be better qualified to give you a heads up on the expansion.

Thanks a lot, guys.  Sounds like the bank is your best friend haha.  So do you lose everything when anything kills you or just a player who loots your tombstone?  Can they literally leave you in underwear with absolutely nothing?  I assume this means no binding on items, or do people just take bound items and vendor them?  Yeah, I'm looking forward to the fear of death - makes you play harder & smarter.   

Originally posted by garbonzo

Thanks a lot, guys.  Sounds like the bank is your best friend haha.  So do you lose everything when anything kills you or just a player who loots your tombstone?  Can they literally leave you in underwear with absolutely nothing?  I assume this means no binding on items, or do people just take bound items and vendor them?  Yeah, I'm looking forward to the fear of death - makes you play harder & smarter.   

Bank as much as you can for sure.

Yes anything you are wearing and anything in your backpack are fair game. With the exception of your starting weapon(s). You can have up to 3 starter weapons which do not receive damage, but they do not increase your skills with that weapon group.

The fear and sweaty palms are what this game is all about. Very few games I've played can do this.

Edit: Spelling.

hey man, send me a tell in game. /tell Harkat Mulds, I'll give you some tips and point you in some of the right directions :D

Yeah I'm getting excited, but my torrent says I've got 10.5 hours to go...

Grubbs, I'll definitely send you a tell.  Thanks! 

yeah start of the game is very tough. in alliance chat theres the usual stupid spam but people do help out noobs, I know I answer alot of questions in game. don't know how helpful chat is for "evil" races.

goodluck. my pro noob tip is: go to race capital and get title quests as well as standard ones. they will passively earn you a fair bit of money. ie. quest to kill 300 goblins will take you a while but you get 2k gold and + str.

Use the terrain and environment to your advantage.  This is critical for ambushes and escapes.

A months supply of Tuck's will help.

Other than that, I would find myself a clan before you even fire Darkfall up. Or at least before you start playing seriously.

Good luck.

tips of survival.

when hanging around the starter towns for gathering/pve and such always do the following.

1. bank often

2. when spending a period of time in one particular place, (killing goblins, gathering ores) always be aware of ur surroudings. think too your self "if i was hunting me, where would i attack from? what is a good escape route? quickest way to get under the protection of a guard tower ect...

3. when on foot always ALWAYS carry a sword and shield and hotbar them for eazy access for going defencive in a hurry

4.dont gather or sprint till ur out of stam, go till half stam then rest.

5. dont get too pissed off when u die lol......there will be days when you will want to quit, but stick it out and you will have victories that will make it all worth while.

6. putting a mount or 3 in ur hotbar will save your life

7. carry a bow when ever possible, just the sound of a bow knocking will often sent mounted players running

8. when ever your getting jumped by a couple players on mounts get too high ground like a rock or something, where u have the advantage. and remember.....mounts cant turn for crap, its ez just too out manuver them and bow them down

Originally posted by garbonzo

Do any current players have some tips to ease me into the first week? 

-Buy the bowyer skill with the first money you get. You can make your own arrows.

-Buy the stamina to health skill as soon as you can afford it. Buy some mandrake and use that skill as your main healing spell. That skill is fast and will save you far more than the slow heal self spell.

-Use the player made maps over the mob and city locations.

-When you are going to join a guild, chose a guild with a city and members. Look at the guild forum in darkfallonline.com .

- Eat often. Eat food when you know you will take damage from mobs. It's a hot and you will have less downtime.

-Harvest when you are not activly playing. You can harvest in safezones around every city.

-Ask in racechat if someone have some spare low level things for a new player.

Join an established clan with a decent sized alliance.  Don't lose to much heart when you die and lose your loot, because you'll never lose the skills you gained while fighting stuff.

It's FFA PvP, always watch your back, and seriously join a clan.

Ok I started.  Thanks for all of the great pointers.  Yeah...bank often.  I've only had one supreme ganking so far, but I was pretty loaded down with loot for a noob - set me back an hour.  

The UI is still a little confusing.  Can you really not just use a skill directly from your hotbar?  I have to stop what I'm doing, disarm, select the skill, then left click to use it.  Seems pretty cumbersome but I guess if everyone has to do it that way it's a level playing field.  I'm just wondering how a spell-leaning player uses more than one spell.  Do you have to change spells like this?  Incidentally I haven't been able to get a spell to cast - only rest and return to my binding spot.  I'll figure it out, but yeah there's no oxygen at the top of this learning curve..

Here's another quick question: I started playing with harvesting - wood.  I got a wood cutting axe and I've whacked about 15 trees 3-4 times each but each time it says the woodcutting failed.  Is this just the noob skill-up phase and it will work eventually? It started to get a little ridiculous.  I mean, what idiot can't get at least a little usable wood with an axe even with no experience.  If my character is that incompetent, he should be missing fingers or a leg at this point.  

You get Magic Missle and Heal Self which are in the spells tab, not skills tab. And yes you can put these on a hotbar and cast them. And spells you can switch to with your wand out right after you cast another spell. As long as that spell isnt on cooldown. And oh yeah I'm a noob too, but with magic missle try to aim for the feet to get splash damage. Lot easier then trying to hit their bodies.

Edit: About the wood thing yes there would be a lot of failures during skill up. But make sure it doesn't say you are unable to get any wood from this tree which means the tree is depeleted.

Originally posted by garbonzo

I'm downloading the Darkfall client now (NA).  Do any current players have some tips to ease me into the first week?  I've read the forums and I'm prepared for some struggle early on, but no worries.

I tend to solo in a new game for a while and join a guild once I get my feet on the ground, but it seems that might be a tougher road in DF.  Any thoughts on staying alive solo, or should I really give that up and jump in with a guild?  I've read archery is good to level for hunting mobs.  Any other key skills to focus on?  Will the coming patch change what I should be doing at the start? 

And please, I'm not looking for discussion about how good or bad DF is - there are plenty of those threads and I've already decided to try it.  I'd like to keep it to people actually playing with constructive advice.

Thanks!

You can play solo, but it is not as enjoyable as being part of a guild.
In fact by playing solo gives you more chances to survive, in a strange kinda way.

First of all you won't be attacked on sight by an enemy guild, secondly no one can attack you in a city unless you are part of a guild in which case an opposite guild can attack you without consequences.
Just stick around the cities and bank often and you can get through the first couple of months.

After that is better you join a guild, the game becomes so much fun, not just for the raids and sieges but the politics involved.

At the moment magic is all the rage, but it will be nerfed after the next expansion, so just do whatever you like...........that's the selling point of Darkfall after all.

Originally posted by garbonzo

Ok I started.  Thanks for all of the great pointers.  Yeah...bank often.  I've only had one supreme ganking so far, but I was pretty loaded down with loot for a noob - set me back an hour.  

The UI is still a little confusing.  Can you really not just use a skill directly from your hotbar?  I have to stop what I'm doing, disarm, select the skill, then left click to use it.  Seems pretty cumbersome but I guess if everyone has to do it that way it's a level playing field.  I'm just wondering how a spell-leaning player uses more than one spell.  Do you have to change spells like this?  Incidentally I haven't been able to get a spell to cast - only rest and return to my binding spot.  I'll figure it out, but yeah there's no oxygen at the top of this learning curve..

Here's another quick question: I started playing with harvesting - wood.  I got a wood cutting axe and I've whacked about 15 trees 3-4 times each but each time it says the woodcutting failed.  Is this just the noob skill-up phase and it will work eventually? It started to get a little ridiculous.  I mean, what idiot can't get at least a little usable wood with an axe even with no experience.  If my character is that incompetent, he should be missing fingers or a leg at this point.  

The UI as initially configured is terrible, but you can fix it.    Open options and take the  time to become familiar with the many things you can rebind and gain far more control over.      For example, because "Shfit" is the default "run" key, I changed all the Hot Bars to "Cntrl -1, 2, etc"; then to use what is in any of the 1 to 0 slots I use the 1-0 keys for Tab 1, F1 - F10 for Tab 2, Alt 1 to Alt 10 for Tab 3, get the idea ?       Spend all the time necessary to make the UI work for you.  It's well worth it and will make the game significantly more fun.    The options are there to accomplish this, but you need to take the time to learn it and do it.

Failed messages should be normal noob skill up phase as you think.   When a resource is depleted, it will say so.

If you can share what race you rolled, I may be able to give you some advice specific to that part of the game world.

With regard to message boards, try to totally ignore the trolls.   It will keep you sane and annoy the daylights out of them -)

Good luck -CC

 The Darkfall forums are as unforgiving as it's ingame experience...there is none like it...

Originally posted by garbonzo

Ok I started.  Thanks for all of the great pointers.  Yeah...bank often.  I've only had one supreme ganking so far, but I was pretty loaded down with loot for a noob - set me back an hour.  

The UI is still a little confusing.  Can you really not just use a skill directly from your hotbar?  I have to stop what I'm doing, disarm, select the skill, then left click to use it.  Seems pretty cumbersome but I guess if everyone has to do it that way it's a level playing field.  I'm just wondering how a spell-leaning player uses more than one spell.  Do you have to change spells like this?  Incidentally I haven't been able to get a spell to cast - only rest and return to my binding spot.  I'll figure it out, but yeah there's no oxygen at the top of this learning curve..

Here's another quick question: I started playing with harvesting - wood.  I got a wood cutting axe and I've whacked about 15 trees 3-4 times each but each time it says the woodcutting failed.  Is this just the noob skill-up phase and it will work eventually? It started to get a little ridiculous.  I mean, what idiot can't get at least a little usable wood with an axe even with no experience.  If my character is that incompetent, he should be missing fingers or a leg at this point.  

Honestly the noob loot you get in the first hour of play is nothing compared to the loot you get after playing for a month or so.  Again, don't worry too much about losing it.

Yea, the UI is unique. It grows on you eventually; I suggest clicking on the options button from the main menu and going to input bindings.  There you can map/re-map pretty much any action you need to in-game ( or you can use /bind [key] [action] ie: /bind left_shit a_Sprint or /bind numpad0 Gui_Hotbar_Col_0_Row_0). I usually have food and pots bound to my number pad so you can use 'em without switching hotbars.

To cast a spell, you need to equip your staff, press 'r' to ready it, then pick the spell you want from the hotbar.  Then just aim, and left click to cast it.

Ya, you'll fail a lot at harvesting during with low skill.  But every time you whack that tree, you're gaining Strength and Vitality; plus you're getting better at harvesting.  After a long enough time, you'll be able to drain a node entirely without needing to rest.  I suggest busting out a movie or something while you harvest, or cleaning all the beer cans piled on your desk.