Originally posted by osmunda

Originally posted by ironhelix

"plate armor blocks almost all archery damage in a realistic manor"

 There is nothing realistic about plate armor blocking archery damage. The longbow made plate armor obsolete, as it easily went right through it.

 Missed it by that much...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3997HZuWjk

The platemail seems pretty effective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRXwk4Kdbic&feature=related

Ok, at 20 meters with perfect aim it seems the longbow is fairly effective. Of course, much of the idea was to deflect the attow, not just stop it.

Tell that to all those dead french nobs in Agincourt........

I bet they're pretty pissed off right now and complain to St.Peter or Beelzebub (probably) that:

"Heeeeey !!!! I shouldn't be here ,there is a video on youtube that shows..........."

I suppose that Henry just lucked out that day

Originally posted by Stoney0jej

Originally posted by egotrip

Originally posted by trashburnin

What is it like to hate on a game for 900+ posts and then actually try it for yourself oh wise one?

Well you were the one(s) that went " try it before you can speak of it " and i did.

So the question is: What's bugging you now? That i tried it and proved that i did? Or that you don't have anything left to pit against me other than verbal insults and condescending manner?

 

So are you saying that you spent $60 just so you can bash the game with some sort of authority that you have now gained from playing it. If this is what you are saying, it really is quite pathetic. Like I said before this post should have been called why darkfall made me cry and whine on the forums. I mean its really no wonder that you had nothing posative to say about the game in this so called "review". So quit trying to DumbF*** everyone and GTFO. You are no different then the worst of the DF community.

Verbal insults and condescending manner..........nothing more.

Thank you for making my point for me

Originally posted by dembar

Hmmm, tough choice.w:

SNIP

you played alfar.... the color used is for the feeling the ones that have drawn the world want to give to the players.

Actually if you had bothered to read the thread  you would've noticed the pics i posted that clearly indicate an orc also i do happen to mention it in the review but yes that wasn't my only character i also made an alfar later on

SNIP

 

maybe not all sounds are great, but because you can hear from what direction a sound is coming from what is very inportnt in te game.

And thank you for pointing out what i already covered

SNIP

sorry but it seems your the only one that experience this bug, never heard of it before. You probably forgot about the  button that can change between  vertical and horizontal swing

Yes it does appear like that but it's there non-the-less

SNIP

 

now i do agree that the chat system could need some work, but thats got little to do with the ui, you need to get used to it because its a ui that has is made for darkfall and the the fps way this game works. now about being frozen in time. you can autorun andharvest,  its not like you can do spells or thinks like that in other games when your trying to type a message. its one of the reason vent and such programs are used by most players even in other mmo's.

 The chat system was just a small example that just depicts IMO the total state of the UI. Again as i mentioned it's almost impossible to give someone that hasn't tried it an idea of it,i just had to try

 

SNIP

As a newbee that has gotten very little money and items i agree naked traveling is the best way. never go out with items you don not want to lose. aint it great that if you use a mount you are more aware of sounds and movement in your surounding?

Nothing to add here

SNIP

lies lies, you can log out and log back in and you will be where you left your char. if you use a mount make sure to despawn your mount. because your mount will stand there and even slowly die if no other people pick it up

 

Tell you what : if  you play EU go tonight and log out somewhere in the wilds then log back in the next day after server reset and see if this happens to you. It happened more than once to me and i'm just curious at this point as to why....

SNIP

Now bindstones are just that they let you bind to that spot so you start there, very handy when you take a long trip and if you bind to the stones a long your way you atleast wont get ported back to your starting point because you are killed ( because this will make you spawn back at your bindstone)

If you're able to log out anywhere and then just find your character where you left him as you previously claimed wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of the bindstones?Just a thought.....

SNIP

now i agree this is something that they did not ad, luckely people are very resourcesful and made there own maps

 

www.afraidyet.net/forums/misc.php

Yeah pity i can't use them in-game, i like to play full screen and it just doesn't work for me i could argue on how a marker that one could place on the in game map would actually improve the whole thing but i guess that's strictly my opinion

Also i forgot to mention this little added bonus that few new players know that it's there; when one logs out in Darkfall, one doesn't exactly log out!!!! Puzzled huh?
Well in the early days of the game, in order to stop people from just pulling the plug during a fight they can't win in order to "save their lewtz" somebody had the "ingenious" idea to add a delay timer to logging out.
Which basically means that even though you might have pushed the "log out" button and you might have turned off your PC your character is actually still in game for a good 1 minute AFTER you log out.
So let's just say that if you unknowingly where within the half kilometer of a mob's agro range and for whatever reason you log out or get disconnected ,that means that if the mob or a passing player hits you during that 1 minute window your character stays in game until he's dead!!!!!
Now one could argue on how a message from the server, during a pvp or pve session where you willingly try to log out would bassically tell you that "You are not allowed to log out at this point", would actually make a more efficient game mechanic that would both allow and motivate the player of refrain from using the "easy way out". But i suppose that something like that would just make too much sense for this game.
As for mounts:-"When you're mounted and the game disconnects? Does the mount return in your backpack?"
NO. It stays where you disconnected for anyone to claim, back to "beating around the bush with you".....
actually that was the way i got my first 3 mounts they were just waiting for me near a stream.Hurray for me and woes to the poor sobs that got disconnected.

So what's my estimation of my 3 hour journey as a 5 day newb from ork to mahirim land?                                                             

There is a good reason why new players don't leave starter cities to venture in the world and that's because:if i had stayed in Metal Heart i could've actually made something of those 3 hours even if i just grinded resources (and boy i hate grinding) than just going from one end of the world to another with minimal rewards gained on the journey.

yeah that the mounts stand there and waits untill someone picks it up get killed or just dies. ( yes it dies slowly when not taken care off)

Combat-
Melee: A bit bland and also a "last resort" since the majority of the time one seems to use more archery and magic than melee, whether in pvp or pve ; still it's better to have it than it is to not, since it's not exactly an option.
Also what's the point of sword and shield since i can as easily block attacks negating give or take the same amount of damage by using a 2 handed weapon whilst at the same time i actually deal more damage with a 2 handed weapon? Can anyone answer that one?

Archery: Without a doubt the most fun of the 3 combat styles and after that "magic nerfing" patch more usefull as well (in pvp).

Magic: Still even after the nerfing the most used form of combat mainly due to 2 reasons:
1)when it comes to pve it's a cheaper way of dropping the mobs hitpoints than using only archery, so get acquainted well with those 2 beginner spells mana missile and heal self since their gonna be the corner stone of leveling magic and dropping hit points from afar ; then simply finish off your target with melee or archery whatever is your fancy.

its cheaper to use magic in pve then arrows? did you play the same game as me? on most mobs arrows do around 15 damage that is 1 gold.  a spell costs between 8 and 20 gold and damage is around 40.

2)This applies to both pvp and pve: magic is simply more usable because of "splash damage" a good number of spells have.
Even though spells use reagents (asides the 2 beginning ones i mentioned earlier) and have to be aimed at the target they don't have to be precise in order to do the damage, even if a spell lands next to your target or right in front of him it still can deal damage while with the bow and arrow it's a miss/hit situation .

And this is without even mentioning what the AoE's are capable of and as far as i know there is no equal "arrow AoE" skill in archery....

I agree magic is mostly used. partly because most people like to play as a powerfull wizard and partly because its indeed easier to land hits because of plash. but to people that think archery is useless. if you spec as a archer with mage killer and have the skill/aim your more deadly then a mage

Hint:Aim low with spells and high with archery

As far as PVP combat goes the oh, so drumrolled "player skill", meaning how any new player can compete in a 1vs1 (haha!!) battle against a 6-12 month old character, comes in last place.
Maybe "player skills" make the difference in a 1vs1 battle among equally equiped,equally geared and equally statistically-wise players ,but battles in Darkfall are almost never a 1vs1 on the same skill level (unless they are arranged).
Here's the my hierarchy 1) trained skills=> 2) equipment=> 3) stats=> 4) player skill (i could add a Nr 5 Hacks but they're a completely different story).
If one possesses the first 3 he can take up a small group (around 5-7 people) of 2 day old newbie characters.
It's simple math really: if one newbie hits for 7 hit points per shot a veteran that has around 400 hit points and all stats maxed and the veteran hits back for 20 hit points per shot at the newbie that has barely 200 hit points at that point;
the newbie thus has to score a woping 58 shots(!!!!) on the veteran in order to bring him down while the veteran only needs 10.
Now in this i don't take in account the various skills,spells the veteran has in his possesion at that time that can easily hit multiple targets at a time and make short work of them and ofc potions that heal a great portion of his lost hit points faster than the newbie(s) can inflict it.
So ,yes, you can as a 2 day old character attack a seasoned player and in the unlikely case that you find him with diminished hit points, without potions and possibly drunk at the keyboard then ,yes you can kill him !!!! Any other occasion and you're as dead as a dodo no matter how great your "player skillz" are.
Also the newly added "specialisation" is basically just bringing classes in the game and gives some character diversity.
 Still i can't see just how it will help to bridge the skill gap between older and newer players.I just don't see the connection between the specialisation and the over time skill-tree deterioration.

sorry but it was never said that a 2 day old player could take one a player that played for a year. But 5 people that played for a week or 2 that can certainly take one 1 vet player if they work togheter. but if you wanna compete with players frmo day one there are plenty of fps games out there. The only thing that would help newer players a bit is faster skill ups in stats in teh beginning.

And for all those people that think they can survive Darkfall without combat (e.x.only crafter) ,good luck since i don't see how you're gonna exactly pull that one off.

gather naked ( every one is ) and make your items and sell them. its not that hard as you put it.

 

Economy- 

sad but treu, this is partly the fault that every one can train all skill's and because people tend to buy/trade in there clan/alliance

 

Snip

 

any player that played for a while makes more money then  that in a hour. you forget its a all about suply and demand. and most people don not sell there mounts they use them.

Yeah but i guess it might  depend on how many hours a day one plays a week with one playing 8 hours daily it's not the same as a week with one playing 3 hours

SNIP

that is what most people do indeed sell them to a clan/alliance member, and part of the problem of the current econemie

Agreed

They want to make darkfall about interaction between players, now i dont say how its currently is, is good  but a auction house is not what they will add.

Agree x 2, as for the auction house it's just a personal preference and just on the top of my head other people have contributed other ideas

 

if your smart you can trade with in relative safty.

And if you're even smarter you won't trade at all, outside your clan anyways

SNIP

you dont use rocks, treels, building, strafe and such? yeah then indeed it comes down to dps. sadly this is how you play, you cant blame any one for that but your own.

Cut it either way you will it does eventually come down to it as for not using any straffing or natural cover let me ask you this: how come i found out of all the exploitable mobs?

if they can heal they heal, if they can heal other they will heal other and they will call for help.

let me ask you this. if you are under fire from a enemy player do you move as chaotic as you can so the one fireing at you needs to dicide where you are going or do you move in a straight line. if you do it its smart. if the ai dos it its not a smart ai?

The only thing is they do all that without any reason or rhyme one can see them at one point charging a spell and the other just running away while the spell is charging thus when they fire it,it just flies in the completely opposite direction from you.And that's just one example...

would really like to know what you did fight, if they got ranged they mostly try to hit you from far away rahter then going into melee.

Try these orks to begin with  as you can see in the picture it's at melee distance and it simply keeps using bow for some reason, it has a melee weapon and at that point it could deal more damage with it but it didn't other times they do the exact opposite

 

the same thing happens to a number of more advanced foes ; their actions are just random but that doesn't make them hard

aint it about how you can be effective against those mobs?

take a caster. use for example a rock and strafe behind it when the mobs is really close and starts to cast a spell. sprint towards it and slash at it a few times. and if your smart you parry just before he release the spell, only hitting its self. sometimes they try to run away while holding the spell. and you can slash them in there backs. this is just one of many tactics you can use, but you never found it out and you blame the game for that?

Look my previous 2 anwers i never had a problem with foes in Darkfall i honestly just found them a bit too easy and too easily exploitable the only thing that would keep me from killing them is again: the damage output and the hit points

SNIP

kill what is worth killing if your out for money, if you wanna go kill mobs that are to hard to make money but wanna kill it you can try or die :P or try again later when you have more skills/statts?

We agree again i see thank you for making my point for me

sometimes its better to be at a spawn point far away and less vissited then be at a spawn point that is used by most plsyers and also a bigger change its vissited by enemies.

 Good advice there

you seem to have the patient to find theses things. but can not find a simple tactic i mentioned earlier? o wait then you would actualie have to play this game instead of standing there and killing that mob. headshot much in fps games?

 

yes sometimes some mob spawns have BIGGGG agro range. nothing is perfect except darkfall ofcourse :P

 

sjees pick at little things much?

Size isn't everything?

 

SNIP

today I when to alfar capital city to pick up quests and mark a few runes, it was earlie in the morning for europeans, and saw atleast 6 players and 4 of them where new. now it could use many many many many more but the poppulation is growing and i am glad it is

As i said wait till the month is over

SNIP

you gain  skills they way you play! sure its gives you a dis advantage if your a archer and you end up meleeing. and to even that up you could alter your game play a bit to make sure you have funn and you gain the skills you want. Atleast if i wanna pick up a sword and hit mobs with it I can do so. try to do that with a druid in wow!

harvesting, crafting can all be done in a semi afk way. and that is good.

Oh nice and here i thought that WoW wouldn't be drawn in this......What ever happened to the : don't compare Darkfall to themepark  games?

SNIP
nothing to do with hacks,

Macroing nothing to do with hacks? Some would disagree with it and so will i respectably

SNIP

wanna go kill the dragon on day one, and you have the people for it you can, wanna sail a ship and fight other ships you can, etc etc the only thing you can forget is killing that vet player in a straight duel if he not as retarted as the op

Ahhh see the part in red is what is basically kept quite conviently out of the whole "Do anything you want from day 1" .Do anything you want from day 1 "if you have the people/if you have the money/ if your skill tree is high enough [add your own here]". Nobody actually bothers to mention these tiny things that change the whole meaning of the sentence and the game, IMO.

 

to join a clan is a BIG advantage treu. and sure in fights you will die faster/sooner. but atleast you can participate, there is no portal that says you have to be lvl 60 to enter.

 That's the understatement of the year.......

How about:Not joining or joining a big  ,well established clan can be a game breaker or a game maker in Darkfall !!!! How's that for size?

SNIP

 

playing this game from beta and for me the game is worth its money and more.

i am not a griever, not a super pvper, think its below average :(, but this games gives me what I like

solo pvp, small group pvp, large group pvp, sea fights, good pve and with the fact you can be jumped anytime make me more aware of my surounding, sometimes a good laugh, friends, and even good very very good enemies.

crafting is not my cup of tea but the fact that i can semi afk harvest my mats and get mats for pve/pvp easy is also nice.

 

did this person really play darkfall. maybe but his review is not made with a open view, there are plenty of things wrong with this game, they have been talked about many times before and tommorow a new post will be made on this forum about something that could be done better or so. Are you interested in pvp go watch darkfall movies on youtube**.

 Well as long as you agree there are problems that is a step in the right direction the rest you can disagree but that's just my experience i don't expect you or anyone to have the exact same one.

Sorry for all the SNIPS i just thought that it was a painfully long read as it is withoutyou actually making it longer and sorry if i missed anything in the process

Also try to make your text a colored one next time because it really helps so much more

** pvp movies are on low settings mostly, for a good view how darkfall looks on max settings there are vids out there with settings on max.

 

 

 

Originally posted by trashburnin

What is it like to hate on a game for 900+ posts and then actually try it for yourself oh wise one?

Well you were the one(s) that went " try it before you can speak of it " and i did.

So the question is: What's bugging you now? That i tried it and proved that i did? Or that you don't have anything left to pit against me other than verbal insults and condescending manner?

Originally posted by trashburnin

Originally posted by Cecropia

Originally posted by Forumtrooper

 

I don't think you understand what I was saying.  He is a hater of darkfall and a fan of MO.  On the Mortal forums their is a darkfall thread on the main discussion forums.  A few posts within the thread  were talking about the positive things on the MMORPG darkfall forums in contrast to the negative number of threads all on the MMORPG Mortal forums.  I think that riled up a few of the MO fanboys thus we are seeing a number of them make their way over here to post negative stuff about Darkfall.  Just seems fishy to me, that's all.

 

Ah, that makes sense, sorry I misunderstood you before.

Oh he an MO fan?  No wonder he came back to these forums, MO is going to be such a failure and DF referrals are selling like hotcakes.  MO isn't even going to have half of what Darkfall had at release, no wonder he mad.

I'm an MO fan? Boy i certainly never expected to find that out from anyone else but me....

Can you also tell me what my favorite food is? I'd like to know cuz i'm cooking it tommorow

Originally posted by tehikk

Melee isn't underpowered you just need to know how to use it. My SG leader has had more luck killing bowmen and casters with his 1H axe than he has with magic or archery.

I never said underpowered i said least used of the 3, or at least that's what it seemed to me like

Originally posted by Cecropia

OP you definitely did not do your credibility any favours with this review :)

It's a good thing then that i didn'tdo it for that, doing reviews just to gain some acceptance over the net it's really not my thing. I just conveyed my game experiences for what they're worth to anyone reading them, no ulterior motive here i'm afraid

I've never once been returned to my bindstone after logging in the wilderness. This only happens if you log off in a body of water. This is basic, everyone knows this (I knew about it before I downloaded the bloody game). In addition you admit to hacking in Darkfall? Classy. Reading that review, it's plainly obvious you went into this with your mind already made up.

Just out of curiocity and since i know that you play NA have you ever tried to log out from the game let's say a couple of hours  before the server resets and afterwards log back in? Go ahead and humor me try it sometime and then share this experience with the rest of us.I mean i know what i experienced and there are at least some people that share this experience with me but i'm trying to figure out if it is indeed a widespread problem or just something that happens to some unlucky ones and i just happen to be one of those.

Your anger runs deep for AV, and shows no sign of wavering :) I just can't believe the time you're willing to invest in this.

That blade cuts both ways; i don't believe that you would go this far just  to defend them

Anyone reading this thread that would prefer to see a more reasonable skeptic's review of Darkfall, done with a little more maturity and less emotional baggage, please check out this thread by StrixMaxima---->>>  www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/262306/Darkfall-A-Critical-Review-from-a-Skeptic.html

"If your foes commend your work that means you're doing something wrong" i don't know who exactly said it but it fits just nicely

Not everyone is going to like the game, but this thread is garbage. Please take it with a heavy grain of salt.

.....and a happy new year to you too............?????

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

Originally posted by egotrip

Well in Darkfall things don't work this way ,in Darkfall if one logs out in the middle of the wildreness the game simply teleports him back to the bindstone he is bound, that means that if one hour in your journey you need for whatever reason to log out ,when you log in again you'll be back where you started; also the same thing happens if you die or disconnect.

 

That is whats there to read  as a fact and in general. 

Now to the more important question why are you hating DarkfFall that much that you don't hesitate to violate the rules and hack and don't report hacking to help the game but instead come up in the forums seeking attention about how bad Darkfall is ?

 

And that's what my game experience on that department was  like Darth. As i mentioned above i don't know how much kanechart's plausible explanation actually holds water or not but i will accept it if someone confirms it only because when ,as far as i remember, whenever i logged out of the game i wouldn't log in for another good 12 hours and when i would log back in my character would be anywhere but where i left him.

That doesn't change the fact that the game does that at least once a day if not indeed more.

Ok ,i'll answer that one but i won't promise that you will like the answer.

When i play a game i make sure i go really deep down and dirty with it in order to see exactly what i'm dealing with.That means if there in an exploitation that's being whispered about in game chat or forums i might just try it just to see whether it's true or not. See if the game was as hack/ exploit / bug free as advertised i would be in real trouble from day 1, instead i was trouble free until my last day.

As to why i don't report  any such violations, well, mainly because if i went around reporting every exploitable mob, macroing, hacking or other bug / glitch that i've seen so far i would've spent 0.9% of my gaming time reporting those things instead of playing.Besides i don't see it as some sort of duty of mine to mop-up after the dev's sloppy work. Just because they didn't bother to code the game correctly am i supposed to act as their fingerman?

Originally posted by xzyax

 

Just curious here.

Why is it that Thillian is the only one saying that egotrip is a liar or wrong about the logging out in the wilderness?

 

Is it possible that some others have noticed the same thing?

Is it possible that for some players it does in fact work that way?

Is it possible that egotrip is in fact telling the truth about his experiences with DarkFall?

 

Just find it interesting to see the attitude displayed by some here. 

Thanks for the review egotrip... I for one found it an interesting read.

 kanechart was the one to actually give a plausible explanation. See there's how i figure it out: it does happen but as it apparently turns out it does have something to do with server resets which to be honest works for me and my point about travelling still stands.

It seems that this is one of those "little" things i mention in the review that everyone is all secretive about for some reason until someone actually does mentions them. Then ofc there are those that offer some explanation like kanechart or the guy that answered me when i was playing  in chat that  "the game does that" and there were others like Thrillion that had less informative answers and are just making anyones case about the in-game community.

 How's anybody that starts the game supposed to know that? It's not that there's a warning sign anywhere in the game's tutorial that bothers to tell you those things nor something that i've personally experienced in any other game except in server rollbacks.If kanechart is ultimatelly correct then this happens once a day which basically means that once you begin to travel you must finish or at least get to the next "checkpoint" which btw you don't know where it is.....providing that you don't die or disconnect before you reach it

The only thing i said is what i experienced so yeah: on several occasions  i did log out  in the wild only to find myself teleported back to my bindstone when i logged in the next day and i stand by it.

Originally posted by Thillian

 

 

 

Egotrip: "Two handed weapons actually have more than one animation now ,even though occasionally they revert back to the good'ol overhead swing and seem to remain like that until i restart my PC (a bug perhaps???)"

 

Should we tell him it's not a bug, but a more careful style if you're fightning in groups, so you don't accidently hit friendly players - and all he needs to press "T" to change it?

 

To sum it up:

After 26 days he played the game, he does not know that he log in at the exact location he logged out, he doesn't know to press T to switch between melee horizontal/vertical animations, and he admitted he used hacks.

Incredible.

I'll put it as plainly as one can to you in vain hope that you actually understand what i am trying to say:

Two handed weapons revert back to the good'ol overhead swing and seem to remain like that until i restart my PC without me pressing any button fiddling around with any controls or actually affecting other weapons like shield and sword and remain like this until AFTER i restart my PC.

Which part of  what i wrote in green don't you understand or are you deliberately taking things out of context?

Originally posted by Respit

Although I would give it more stars for entertainment value than for informative value, I still found it to be an interesting read.

 Hmm, i'll take that better than nothing i suppose

Seems like you touched the nerve of a couple others around here though.

Did you happen to kill them in game and take all their stuff?

 No i'm pretty sure we're playing different servers...if they played at all that is

As far as the little 1-hand + board vs. the 2-hander? I think I Understand what you were trying to say. When it comes to a 1vs.1 (heck, even worse odds if they are newbies) I personally would equip the 2-hander every time.

 Yeah maybe i should've elaborated a bit further on that since i am not 100% pleased with what i wrote and i can see now how it can be taken out of context but as you can see it was a rather long one and half way during i found myself trying to cut it down to make it more readable (and to think i had to actually skip the whole hacking part)

 

Jesus Fox FTW!!!  <---- That was great! LMAO

Wait 'till you see the picture.

I also got an armadillo and some bucks running on the ocean surface.....the only thing missing is the kraken coming from underneath and swallowing them up

 

 

 

Originally posted by Thillian

 After this paragraph, I have a serious doubt you ever played Darkfall actually. This is a blatant lie.

Anyone playing more than 3 days must know, you log in AT THE SAME EXACT LOCATION WHERE YOU LOGGED OUT, unless you logged out swimming in water -> that's the only time you're teleported back to bindstone when you log in next time.

I am not gonna discuss your other points, this alone is enough to discredit your whole wall of text.

Now you see there is a bit of a problem here because every single time i've logged out in the wilds and decided the next day to resume the game, the game had simply teleported me back to the city bindstone that i had bound my character and when i asked in chat about this problem they basically said "yes it does that and you should log out in cities...problem solved"

Also here's a nice picture of one of my characters just in case somebody else decides to throw around the "j00 haven't played teh game" feel free to post your own just to settle the argument on "who has actually played the game"

Note: And for the ones that decide to say "how do we know that this is even you?"

Well try to move the letters around a bit and see what you come up with (here's a hint the number " 3 " goes first)

Originally posted by cosy

wait u made 3 hours from orc land to furry land ? next time get mana to stamina and sprint all teh time that will take like 30/45 min

Yeah that makes a good advice...... also if you added "don't die, don't get disconnected and don't stray from a straight path if something / somebody is hunting you" which also happens during a travel (and it happened in this one) and you can see why    it 's not so uncommon to actually take longer than 45 minutes.

Originally posted by kanechart

Most of this review is fake.
 

Please elaborate on what part(s) you consider fake.

In 28 (well at least 26 days without the grind) i've played as the following:
-A clanless soloer. The same way that a good portion of people start this game.
-A clanned person in a starting,not well established clan with some gear from my previous character; which is how a good number of people ends up.
-A clanned person in a well established clan with some better gear from my previous 2 characters;
which is safe to say not an all that common way for most people to start the game with having such advantages.

This is what i saw and how i experienced Darkfall those days of playtime:

The graphics-
Overall that was always my least of concerns since it's a fairly well drawn world,a bit too strong on the brown color, but i suppose that amounts to personal taste more than anything.
The newly added armor skins are only counting as a plus without adding anything other than some new *bling-bling*, still it does count as a plus.

The sound-
Still not the strong part of the game and more in the way than actually adding to it. The music just goes bye-bye from day 1 even if somebody doesn't do it
because he can't stand it but because it actually is helping one to hear what's going on around him. As for the sound effects i still can't decide what's the worst :
the tap-dancing sound effect when running or the "splooch!" sound when one falls from a high place and gets injured that seems to be taken from a Ron Jeremy movie.

Character/Mob Animations-
The character animations have remained largely unchanged since beta the characters still seem to have the proverbial broomstick going in from their mouth through the oesophagus and out of their posterior.
One would think that with a year having passed since release that they would have made some improvements to them... and they have.
Two handed weapons actually have more than one animation now ,even though occasionally they revert back to the good'ol overhead swing and seem to remain like that until i restart my PC (a bug perhaps???)
Also, remember that beta bug where whenever you killed a mob it "slided" like ten meters away from you thus making it's tomb appear not where the mob fell but where it slided?
Well the grave now appears where the mob fell...but this doesn't keep him from sliding, they still do that ; so after one year they're half way there......let's give them more time to work on that to make it right , they only had 1 year after all.

The UI- 

Downright the ugliest one i've seen to date. Everything is done manually in the crudest most primitive way possible.
To someone that hasn't experienced it i couldn't possible give an accurate picture of it,so i'll suffice to say that if i saw this UI in a single player game i would completely understand but i just don't know what's it doing in an MMO.
It's a bit like having a pause button in an MMO ,the world keeps moving on around you but for the duration of just doing a simple task such as respond to a text message you're frozen in space and time......

Darkfall and traveling-
"Darkfall has one of the biggest open,FFA, non-instanced world that a player can explore from day 1"
Well this is one of those things like the "1 day newb defeat a six old month player in PvP" argument that work well...in theory;
but when you actually try to put it in use you find out all sorts of problems that people simply have neglected to mention.
So i decided to make a road trip as a 5 day old character from Metal Heart (orkish begginer town) to Whiteclaw a Mahirim (allied race) city. So let's gear up and go !!!
By "gear up" i mean get the absolutely essentials with you and that means nothing you don't want to lose; which as you're gonna understand after reading this passage is why naked traveling is strongly suggested.
So first of all you need to locate your target destination and decide whether to travel on mount or by feet.
Now the mount is a bit faster than by feet but you can lose it on several occassions which means that you're gonna have to go "beating around the bush" in order to get another one.
So by feet it is and that makes it a 2 and 1/2 hour journey (give or take). Now in other open world games (e.x L2) when one has a 2 and 1/2 hour journey and for some reason half way in it must for whatever reason to abandon it they simply log out and if one's ready the next day to continue they simply pick up where they left. Simple, easy and well understandable.
Well in Darkfall things don't work this way ,in Darkfall if one logs out in the middle of the wildreness the game simply teleports him back to the bindstone he is bound, that means that if one hour in your journey you need for whatever reason to log out ,when you log in again you'll be back where you started; also the same thing happens if you die or disconnect.
-"So wait i must do this trip straight for 2 and 1/2 hours without death or disconnection? No breaks, not even for bathroom?"
Well not exactly ,there is something to it; chaos bindstones. They are similar to the bindstones you find in the cities except they're scattered all around the map in the wild and not protected by guard towers,kinda like checkpoints.

-"Ok, so i'll locate one of them and bind to it and log out and i'll continue my journey from that point next time i log in"
Sure just don't forget 2 minor hickups that you might encounter:
1) Those chaos bindstones are widly prefered by red players mostly because the're unguarded by laser towers.
So next time you log in you might find yourself in company you won't enjoy. See red players will kill you for your gear, to farm alliance or just to kill you...so you might end up stuck there for longer than you expect.
-"But wait what about the 2 minute invunrability rule you have from the moment you respawn ?"
Well yeah there is that, but that doesn't stop a red from following you around those 2 minutes and when they're over,because lets face it one can only run this far in that given time, it's back to the chaos stone with you.
2) You must know beforehand the exact location of every single one of those bindstones since they're not visible on the in-game map unless you actually come near one
and by near i mean entering the little square on the map that is the territory which the stone resides in. So as a new guy when you travel you bassically "put on a hat and trust in luck"......come to think about it forget the hat because you'll probably just end up losing it.

Also i forgot to mention this little added bonus that few new players know that it's there; when one logs out in Darkfall, one doesn't exactly log out!!!! Puzzled huh?
Well in the early days of the game, in order to stop people from just pulling the plug during a fight they can't win in order to "save their lewtz" somebody had the "ingenious" idea to add a delay timer to logging out.
Which basically means that even though you might have pushed the "log out" button and you might have turned off your PC your character is actually still in game for a good 1 minute AFTER you log out.
So let's just say that if you unknowingly where within the half kilometer of a mob's agro range and for whatever reason you log out or get disconnected ,that means that if the mob or a passing player hits you during that 1 minute window your character stays in game until he's dead!!!!!
Now one could argue on how a message from the server, during a pvp or pve session where you willingly try to log out would bassically tell you that "You are not allowed to log out at this point", would actually make a more efficient game mechanic that would both allow and motivate the player of refrain from using the "easy way out". But i suppose that something like that would just make too much sense for this game.
As for mounts:-"When you're mounted and the game disconnects? Does the mount return in your backpack?"
NO. It stays where you disconnected for anyone to claim, back to "beating around the bush with you".....
actually that was the way i got my first 3 mounts they were just waiting for me near a stream.Hurray for me and woes to the poor sobs that got disconnected.

So what's my estimation of my 3 hour journey as a 5 day newb from ork to mahirim land?                                                             

There is a good reason why new players don't leave starter cities to venture in the world and that's because:if i had stayed in Metal Heart i could've actually made something of those 3 hours even if i just grinded resources (and boy i hate grinding) than just going from one end of the world to another with minimal rewards gained on the journey.

Combat-
Melee: A bit bland and also a "last resort" since the majority of the time one seems to use more archery and magic than melee, whether in pvp or pve ; still it's better to have it than it is to not, since it's not exactly an option.
Also what's the point of sword and shield since i can as easily block attacks negating give or take the same amount of damage by using a 2 handed weapon whilst at the same time i actually deal more damage with a 2 handed weapon? Can anyone answer that one?

Archery: Without a doubt the most fun of the 3 combat styles and after that "magic nerfing" patch more usefull as well (in pvp).

Magic: Still even after the nerfing the most used form of combat mainly due to 2 reasons:
1)when it comes to pve it's a cheaper way of dropping the mobs hitpoints than using only archery, so get acquainted well with those 2 beginner spells mana missile and heal self since their gonna be the corner stone of leveling magic and dropping hit points from afar ; then simply finish off your target with melee or archery whatever is your fancy.
2)This applies to both pvp and pve: magic is simply more usable because of "splash damage" a good number of spells have.
Even though spells use reagents (asides the 2 beginning ones i mentioned earlier) and have to be aimed at the target they don't have to be precise in order to do the damage, even if a spell lands next to your target or right in front of him it still can deal damage while with the bow and arrow it's a miss/hit situation .

And this is without even mentioning what the AoE's are capable of and as far as i know there is no equal "arrow AoE" skill in archery....

Hint:Aim low with spells and high with archery

As far as PVP combat goes the oh, so drumrolled "player skill", meaning how any new player can compete in a 1vs1 (haha!!) battle against a 6-12 month old character, comes in last place.
Maybe "player skills" make the difference in a 1vs1 battle among equally equiped,equally geared and equally statistically-wise players ,but battles in Darkfall are almost never a 1vs1 on the same skill level (unless they are arranged).
Here's the my hierarchy 1) trained skills=> 2) equipment=> 3) stats=> 4) player skill (i could add a Nr 5 Hacks but they're a completely different story).
If one possesses the first 3 he can take up a small group (around 5-7 people) of 2 day old newbie characters.
It's simple math really: if one newbie hits for 7 hit points per shot a veteran that has around 400 hit points and all stats maxed and the veteran hits back for 20 hit points per shot at the newbie that has barely 200 hit points at that point;
the newbie thus has to score a woping 58 shots(!!!!) on the veteran in order to bring him down while the veteran only needs 10.
Now in this i don't take in account the various skills,spells the veteran has in his possesion at that time that can easily hit multiple targets at a time and make short work of them and ofc potions that heal a great portion of his lost hit points faster than the newbie(s) can inflict it.
So ,yes, you can as a 2 day old character attack a seasoned player and in the unlikely case that you find him with diminished hit points, without potions and possibly drunk at the keyboard then ,yes you can kill him !!!! Any other occasion and you're as dead as a dodo no matter how great your "player skillz" are.
Also the newly added "specialisation" is basically just bringing classes in the game and gives some character diversity.
 Still i can't see just how it will help to bridge the skill gap between older and newer players.I just don't see the connection between the specialisation and the over time skill-tree deterioration.
And for all those people that think they can survive Darkfall without combat (e.x.only crafter) ,good luck since i don't see how you're gonna exactly pull that one off.

Economy- Or more like it.... the absense of it.
What Darkfall economy consists of is a trade channel where people are supposed to spam "WTB or WTS / WTT" adds , sadly as one discovers soon it's more frequently used for anything other than that, but this belongs in the community section of the review so i'll ellaborate on that later.
As i said previously there is no economy the only things that one might see advertised being sold are some crafting mats, player housing stuff....and that's it.
No armors, no weapons, no mounts ,no clothing, nothing else;and why should there be anything else, since everyone can craft their own gear!!{?}
And mounts, while they're priced at about 600-700 gold atm ask yourself this:what would you rather have as a spare in the bank?
A) An extra mount that may take from 1-4 days "beating around the bush" in order to acquire or
B) 600-700 gold that may take a couple of hours, tops three, to acquire?

What borks it furthermore is: why would anyone want to sell their crafting/enchantment mats to some random guy that they can't trust anyway and may or may not just kill them and run away with their stuff at the minimal risk of going red ?
Why not rather sell them to a clan member or keep them for themselves since they are going to use them eventually....
"Let's see should i run half across the world to meet that guy to sell him my hour upon hour farmed mats at the chance of being mugged or should i just keep them in my bank and wait until me or a clan member needs them?"  Hmmm, tough choice.
Come to think about it i saw plenty of "WTB enchantment/crafting mats" but not even half as much "WTS"......hmmmm
Player owned vendors: i'm not completely certain how those things work exactly but i doubt they're of much use to anyone not owning that vendor ( or maybe one of his clan members) ,i seriously doubt that it's more a practical way for anyone to peddle their wares than it is a luxury commodity like a house.
I mean, seriously, how difficult would an universal auction house be? An NPC in every town where players can place the items they wish to sell and other players anywhere in Agon can buy them.Is it that difficult? But i suppose the sliding mobs thing has seniority in being fixed first.
And for the "h4rdc0r3wanna-gank-noobz-and-stealz-all-der-stuffz" players that are gonna cry "carebear" at the idea of an auction house for fear of losing their ability to kill newer players i say: don't worry in Darkfall there are plenty of other occasions you can do exactly that.

AI-
Easily the most exploitable one that i've seen in a long time.
For all it's so-called "complexines" and those patches of "tweaking " it, it's also one of the most easy ones to exploit.
I can understand why a player coming from any other game where they walk up to a mob or the mobs walks up to them and they start wacking each other until the one with the less hit points and the lower damage output is dead
might think that the Darkfall AI is so much more complex and different,but a closer look at it reveals it for what it really is
and in the end it all boils down to the 2 same factors that any other MMO : damage output and hit points.

They claim that the mobs of this game change strategies,tactics,call upon other mobs to aid them against you depending on the tactics and on the weapon that you fight them with ,but their actions are as random as their movement patern and that's the only thing that separates it from other games that i have seen and it neither makes them necesserally smarter nor more difficult to kill.

Let me elaborate on that: most mobs in Darkfall come in groups of 3's and they almost all have just 2 attacks : melee and ranged whether that is ranged magic or bow and arrow depends solely on the type of mob.
It's quite often that when i fought a mob (or the group of 3 that they usually come in) that i saw them coming at me when they where a good distance away from me holding their melee weapons when i greeted them with a hail of arrows and they only changed to ranged when they got right next to me {!!!}

And when it would come to a face to face encounter ,we would both still be using bows and unless i switched tactic to melee the mob would just keep using bow and arrows on me even though it was well within striking distance for it to use melee and could that way cause more damage to me.
But as i said that's not the case all the times,matter of fact is that they act completely random just switching between those 3 tactics they have implemented in their code (running away,melee, ranged) in every random combination possible without that making them necesseraly effective against you the player.

Also try to divert your attention to just one of them (providing that you are strong enough to take some damage or hidden well enough to avoid the attacks from the other ones) and the other two just seem to forget you after a while, they just seathe their weapons and calmly just walk away as you finish off their buddy giving you ample time to loot the corpse of the fallen one(s), skin it or even if you haven't taken enough damage get a couple of sneak shots at them as they walk away.
 Also the difference of the mobs that you can kill and the the ones that you can't comes down to 2 simple things : the damage output and whether or not your is equal or higher than the mob's you're fighting and the hit points that each of you have.
I mean sure you can go as a new player packed with let's say 1000 arrows , a couple of flatbows,a staff and all the pots you can carry to go and try to kill a e.x. Moonbeast Ravager that can bassically 4-shot-kill you at that point
and with a lot of of luck and maybe with the aid of a ledge ,a rock or tree that the Moonbeast "can't" climb on and reach you,you just might be fortunate enough to avoid it's magic attacks, make every shot count and use up every potion you have at that point
and you might just might take it down ; and when you go over to loot it's corpse you'll find out that you actually ended up with less than you started with !!!!
It's just like going to the Hot Springs in L2 when you're lvl 40, simply unproductive and not a good idea.
Which is also 1 of the reasons why most new players stick with goblins : they're in abundance everywhere and just more worth the effort than any other mob at that point....The other reason is covered in the travel section of the review.

Now i mentioned exploit before and yes, as far as i have seen every mob has an easy way to kill it,one just must figure out what the exploit is.
Whether it's a ledge that they can't come up to, a structure that they simply won't go inside or come out of , a crevice (my favorite) that separates two stripes of land that they just seem to fall in or get stuck in between ,
a strip or pool of water they won't cross (hydrophobia) , stairs[wtf] or other. All those make the AI easily exploitable and poorly coded,IMO.

Oh and something that i forgot : the agro range. It seems that mobs happen to notice you from half a kilometer away....that's half a kilometer including trees,buildings ,mining rocks and even small hills that may be between the player and them, i occasionally felt like this .It almost feels like mobs have super-vision and can see through anything but maybe this "superpower" is there to somewhat compensate for their "hydrophobia" ,"fear of stairs" or "sudden amnesia" that they get during battles.

Wildlife-
Not much to say here except it consists basically of a variety of creatures (armadillo, deer, fox, bombardier etc) that basically are used as another farming resource for the players, they don't fight back they just run and make good target practise.
Ironically though the majority of these creatures i first saw in towns (not out in the wild as their name suggests) and it seems that they have developed the exact opposite counterpart of the "mob-hydrophobia" ;
some sort of weird Jesus complex......yes, they seem to defy the laws of physics and walk on water (Jesus fox FTW) !!!!!!!

Population-
"The population is blooming/booming/thriving/exploding {add your favorite word here}".
I've seen this phrase quite a few times and there are only 2 things i'd like to add [as far as the EU server goes]:
1) If that is how the EU server is during this blooming/booming/thriving period i would really hate to be there when it was declining.
During that 3 hour journey as a 5 day old character i came across 1 other player and he went into cluster of bushes and went "poof" as soon as he made my presence.
The only time i died and had to double back during my trip was when i got too close to a dwarf town and was lasered to death by the tower.Any stuff i had on me that i picked up along the way where waiting in my grave when i went back to get them.....that's right outside a town !!!!!
2) given that January was a month of {limited} free trials i would refrain from bold statements such as these since it's only gonna show how many new players the game is going to have AFTER the month is over,personally i wouldn't hold my breath judging from all the "i quit this game sux ' i saw in chat

Community-
My view without elaborating too much on this (because this could really go on for ever if i do so) is: If the game makes you willingly want to shut off the race/race allignment/public chat just so you don't have read what is written on there,it's when the game has a disfuctional community, short and sweet.
One would think that the trade channel might get some "let alone" time from all those enlightening conversations about "who pwns who" and "what their mother is doing" and focus on maybe it's supposed use , but sadly no......
One bright spot on it though is that i've seen less "go back to WoW,L2P" type of answers when a noob asks a question like e.x"is there any easier way to put an item in my bag other than dragging it?", but that's also racially related...meaning depending on what race one chooses in game.

Allignment system-
Must be some sort inner dev. joke played on the community because i really can't take it seriously in anyway. Whether it's there or not it's all the same since there majority of clans are or become ARAC.
You're red for killing a member of the same alliance to get all his stuff? Big deal , just have some clanies of the opposite racial alliance willingly be ganked and watch yourself slowly turn back to blue status, alternatively just find one of those wilderness unguarded banks (every major clan knows the exact location of each and every one of them) in a newb area of an opposing faction and farm them at the mere remote risk of losing maybe just the gear you have on at that time (and let's face it you're not gonna be wearing your best stuff then).
And that is the punchline of the joke : there really is no real consequence in going red in Darkfall

Grindfall-
Or an alternative title : *liberate tutemet ex inferis*.
Again grinding is one of those things that you just can't avoid doing,i mean you can but only in theory.See it's like the melee weapon thing i spoke of earlier you don't have to do it if you don't want to but that will somewhat leave you with a gimped character.
Not grinding is not exactly a viable option especially in the competetive nature of the game,it's not like if you don't grind it's gonna give your character some bonus in another area of his skill tree that will compensate for the loss of those things associated with grind or giving you for that matter an alternative way of gaining those.No,not grinding will simply just subtract from your character just placing him lower on the food chain.
So whether it is getting hit intentionally in order to raise your rigor or breaking rocks going "At-ti-ca,At-ti-ca..." while at it to gather some ore for your next set of armor ,or just Beating around the Mulberry bush to get herbs for your potions or steedgrass while gaining some minor boost to your stats ,think of this : by doing it you actually add on your character but without doing it you gain absolutely nothing ; even though 2 hours doing that and watching what the gain was, actually made me want to re-enact *that * certain scene of the movie "Event Horizon" .
Hackfall-
Hacks,every game has them but it's the very nature of the open world & full loot that Darkfall provides that makes them game breakers and 10 times stronger than they would normally be. (not to mention a large portion of a poorly coded client stored user side and the inexistant security)
 Due the rules of conduct  of this site i can't elaborate as much as i would like and say the things that i've seen experienced and done (yes, done!!!) on that department, so i'm forced to turn this part of the review from a 3 paragraph thing to a 2 small sections bit.

Fact of the matter is PVP in Darkfall is almost never fair it's always you vs an un-even number of higher stat and higher grinded skill tree players that have nothing better to do (or fight for that matter) than begginer players now i'm not justyfying the use of such third party programs but i can relate to the reason(s) why anyone would use them.
I can't say the exact extent of how widespread those programs are but i can say that it is more of a "everybody does it but noone talks about it" situation ,than a "it's just a minority that actually uses them and they are being banned" situation.

And since i can't speak of what third party programs i have used ,i shall only speak of the ones  i haven't used or seen for that matter, the list follows bellow:

Macroing-
Well on this one they have actually made some progress by basically easying up the grinding process, skills now go up in a more rapid manner than back in beta and have some restrictions to their skillng up( e.x one must hit a target ,player or mob in order to actually make the hit count)
but does it stop people from using macros? No. Fact is that people will still prefer to level skills such as running ,swimming ,jumping, mining etc. of their characters while they're asleep or otherwise engaged than not to.
One can still go in a town especially in the small hours of the night and hear the noise of swimming and running and if one should follow it they will find some naked character with his face against a wall ,whether in water or on land ,chasing *that* dragon.

Epilogue- Final thoughts:
It seems that a new player must do things a very specific way in order to "fully" experience the game the way it is "supposed" to be played despite it being advertised as a sandbox game that allows a new player to do literally anything and be anything they want from day 1.
One "must" join a clan in order to fully enjoy the game in every aspect, this clan "must" be a well established clan so that they may aid the player in his beggining steps, a player "must" play in a specific manner and on a specific time schedule[ X Hours per day doing that, X hours doing the other for a X amount of months in order to make him competetive]
otherwise he's in danger of doing things the "wrong way" and inescapably,not enjoy the game to it's "full extent" ,be left out of competition and of no use to his guild other than arrow fodder.....

So is it worth the money the time and the effort? Well, that is a question that you ultimately need ask yourself.
Hell !!! In the end it's your money,your time,your choice....
As far as i'm concerned i payed something less than 20 Euro for 30 days of playtime and for that time the price was worth it.
But is it worth to me the retail price it's asking for in it's current state ? No.
My view of the game is that,well.... it's broken.They are just too many issues even now still hanging unresolved.
One year since it's commercial release and the game feels to me like it's taken 1 step forth and two steps back.
The two {?} "expansions" just added things that were advertised and repeatedly insisted of being there from day 1 while in fact they weren't.
If i have to sum up this game in just two words those would be "potential & failure".......some potentialy great ideas and the failure to implement them properly.

........and then?

Originally posted by Eziom

They could make the free trial players restricted to a free trial server. How would that mess up the economy of Darkfall?

What economy?

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by egotrip

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

How about a Demo? Basically, a single player Demo of DarkFall with a single race and starter zone, scripted PKers who comes by from time to time, decent crafting spots, goblins/zombies/trolls with good AI. Demo would not have a time limit. Player could play as long as they wants and once they feels confortable with the game mechanic, well he can buy DarkFall and join the MMO server.

 

I'm actually serious. It's somewhat easy to make.

I have not seen the results of the 10 day free trial cards on EU yet but I would really like to avoid a Free Trial. It would be terrible.

I'm not gonna elaborate too much on the morality and ethics behind this "idea" of yours because this could go on forever ; so i'm just gonna touch the issue of players that will try the "single player demo", will buy the game and after the month is over and are unsatisfied will claim a refund based on false advertising . In lamest terms : the experience of the single player version does not depict an accurate portrait of the actual  Massive Multiplayer Online experience which completely changes the whole concept of the game  and that is a situation that AV could find themselves into should they go that way.

On the light side of things if they do decide to go with that idea they wouldn't find themselves in a situation too unfamiliar to them (double-billing, being blacklisted by major credit card companies etc, etc)

And for the record the 10 day trial is the best idea they had so far (yeah i know it's limited to Greece and not every potential customer can get access to it but it's A) Better than nothing and B) speaking volumes for the company's decisions so far)

P.S.Next time leave the picture in ,it's there for a reason

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

How about a Demo? Basically, a single player Demo of DarkFall with a single race and starter zone, scripted PKers who comes by from time to time, decent crafting spots, goblins/zombies/trolls with good AI. Demo would not have a time limit. Player could play as long as they wants and once they feels confortable with the game mechanic, well he can buy DarkFall and join the MMO server.

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by egotrip

Besides once one is done playing games on the PC one can always download porn, that's what the internet is for.....isn't it?

 

Dude I want to click your link feeling that it maybe a awesome porn site that I may not know about but im afraid.

No guts, no glory