Originally posted by Nasir64

Originally posted by CyberWiz

Originally posted by Nasir64

I just want to clear a few things up around here about the myth that keeps on showing up in these forums. The fact is there is no where near 300k players. These are accounts, and personally many of these accounts are owned by people who multibox. I myself have 3 accounts, my close friends that I play with all have atleast 1 extra account for either covert ops "eyes", manufacturing, or logistics. This guy alone can describe 90% of eve players, not that everyone has this many accounts but in general this is how things are around EVE. http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1215928

 

I hate to break it to these guys feeding misinformation but this is the honest to god truth. At no point in time will you ever see the players currently online break 50k. I have seen it at 51k ONE time in my 5 and a half years of playing. Hell I think out of the 100's of people I know maybe 4 have one account, and 2 of them guys closed the second account due to $$ issues.

 

Does this affect the game itself and make it less fun? Some say yes, but I don't feel it does. If I had to guess i'd say there is maybe 75k players at best. Which is still good. By no means is the game empty and in my opinion it has just the right number of players. Just thought I would clear it up. Cheers

 

You make wild claims, which are alot more invalid than the fact that EVE Online has 300k+ subscriptions ( 301826 in september 09 ) and a Peak Concurrent Users of 53850, reached in March 09 ( went down to 46880 after the Unholy Rage against bots, but is going back up again, with 50873 in september ).

The 300k+ subs excludes the +/- 40k trials, so in total they have around 340k active accounts.

Now, everyone know alot of players have multi accounts, and EVE has probably some more of them than some other MMO's, but claiming it has 75k players at best is just wild guessing and in contradiction to the official 15-20% multi account players number.

If you want to make a point, please try to stick to the facts, otherwise you will be looked at as just another troll or newb.

 

 

Please post your facts other then your ramblings. Please show me where CCP shows these numbers. And please point me to where this says individual accounts. You have to understand I am on unemployment right now due to the economy and I play from DT til 1 or 2 am EST . I know what my screen says when I log to switch alts for my cyno pilots. Lets put this in 8 hour shifts shall we.

3 x 8 hour shifts at 30k (being nice) players. that is 90k players all around. Now give or take 20k for ones offline that are used for manufacturing, that is 110k at BEST. And a good majority of them are alt accounts. Subtract the trials at say 20k to be nice. and you still have 90k subs.

 

This shows such a lack of basic statistical analysis understanding that it is laughable. You should stick to watching cartoons instead of trying to make an intelligent post on such a subject.

Originally posted by Chieftan

Originally posted by CallsignVega

I agree. I don't see how you call the incredibly polished interface* and your smooth interaction of the game world* being mechanically bad in EvE. Especially against a game like WoW that has the complex mechanics of "Press F1 to swing sword", "Press F2 to cast spell" and you win.

 

Like I said, shills.

 

How many times are you going to reply with the word "shills"? Aren't you cool. Your argument is stunning. Not to mention you are using the word in the wrong context as I have nothing to gain from my statements.

I agree. I don't see how you call the incredibly polished interface and your smooth interaction of the game world being mechanically bad in EvE. Especially against a game like WoW that has the complex mechanics of "Press F1 to swing sword", "Press F2 to cast spell" and you win.

I don't think pure market share is the best determination of the best MMORPG. WoW does so well because it is so simple and can appeal to the masses that do not like to think too much when they play a game. For the people that like an actual challenge, a game like EvE Online presents itself to be a better game on a huge order of magnitude. Considering EvE caters to a more intellectual player, the number of subscribers is going to be substantially lower. But for the vast majority of these players, a game like WoW would almost be unfathomable to play.

Both games will be around for many years to come.

You have to give Eve some time to get your head wrapped around it. Once you do, there is no going back. At first I did not "get" Eve, I was too used to Orcs and Elves. Once I put some time into it, I realized Eve is the best game I've ever played. This new expansion even takes it to another level.

Originally posted by daarco

Originally posted by Spaceweed10

A lot of folk love the premise of this game.  The implementation of these ideas is quite a different entity altogether.

All I see here, is 'cheap'.

Almost everything about this game seems stuck in a time warp, from the UI to the fact that every race will look exactly the same as one another.

It has taken 8yrs to produce this title, and it doesn't half show.  One server will be enough to suit this community.

Will I be fronting money to play it?  Don't be stupid..

 

I respect your opinion.

But what do you think about a game as WoW for example? Because there you have something that i think is "cheap".

Although I think WoW is garbage, it was way more "finished" software when it was released then Darkfall is.

I am going to give credit to Beliathon over on the Darkfall forums for his review which I think takes my views of the game into much more detail. It is a great review and worth the time to read.

Originally Posted by Beliathon
Disclaimer:
Most of this is cold, hard fact, but some of it is also my opinion. I've done my best to be objective and honest here but you may find people who disagree with some of this. I welcome any opposing viewpoints for debate, all I ask is that we keep it constructive.

The Good:
-Darkfall is by far the most beautiful, well-crafted, masterfully laid-out world I have had the pleasure of exploring. It is the first MMORPG I've ever played that truly and totally immerses me into "another world". I have been mezmerized again and again by the awe-inspiring sights and sheer grandeur of Agon. You can tell a ton of work went into molding the landscape. Exploring is one of the main things that keep me wanting to play every day.

-There is a huge variety of loot even in beta - much greater than Age of Conan had at release. In my own month of beta experience I've encountered dozens and dozens of different weapon and armor varieties.

-In Darkfall, there is the constant feeling of danger - you never know who to trust. Actions have consequences and that adds an enormous amount of fun factor.

-The framerate in Darkfall is generally GREAT, I see consistently 60-70 FPS, sometimes over 100. I have a GeForce 8800 GTX.

-From East Coast USA, my ping is consistently 100-120. Almost never higher.

-Monster AI is everything they say it is - although there are a few exploits and pathing issues that need to be fixed. The PvE in Darkfall is very, very challenging.

-Darkfall is the first MMO I've played where night actually FEELS like night - it's dark - it's scary. You see less, you feel a greater sense of danger. I actually heard a clanmate once say, "phew, the suns coming up" - that about sums it up and I absolutely love it. I've been wanting this from an MMO FOREVER. Of course, you can always pump up the gamma.

-The server has been stable when they are not doing work on it. This week it's uptime has met my expectations for a finished game.

The Bad
-At current, it is 100% impossible to accomplish ANYTHING solo. Even duoing it is next to imposible to kill any but the very basic starter mobs. Perhaps its intended that you should grind the same starter mobs for weeks before you can progress to anything tougher - but that seems a shitty feature to me. This seems to be a design decision, not a mistake, but I thought you ought to know before you lay down your 50 euros (19% tax included).

-Any time the server or client crashes - or you simply log out - you are warped back to the starting city (upon logging back in). I assume this is just part of debug mode, but there's no way to know for sure. Since Aventurine has decided NOT to let players "try before they buy", I'm just telling it like it is.

The following is from the beta forums, but I've read it and agree with everything said:

- Magic is slow/expensive/horrible grind. A lot of people seem to like it this way as they believe proper mages should be rare. I disagree. Mages aren't jedi - magic should be hard to master, but not painfully grindy and unrewarding.

- Empty world. I sincerely hope that the world will get filled for release. I doubt they would create huge cities, complexes etc just to leave them empty. The mob population has improved in strides since I joined beta, but it still feels somewhat lacking when you can run for 20-30 minutes and not encounter a single mob. Many of the early mob spawns are competitive locations because only certain mobs drop decent loot - and this is in a beta with only 1/4th or 1/5th a release population.

- Crafting as a system. Unless you own a clan city, crafting is an expensive, and slow process. An amateur blacksmith, for example, needs to pay 40-200 gold (depending on what item you're attempting to craft) for EACH attempt to craft an item. There is a 25% failure chance. I've heard complaints that with the costs set this high, it's impossible to make a profit on the items they've crafted. Many people complain that they can't make money/sell their wares. This will likely be remedied, at least somewhat, by a fully populated server.

- Sound. Obnoxious placeholder sound-effects aside, the sound is not positionally accurate. I have $200 surround headphones and if I hear combat I can't tell if it's 10 feet or 100 feet from me, or in what direction. This needs work.

- Graphics and animations. Personally, I'm happy with the graphics that Darkfall delivers.

Melee fighting is boring/repetitive/simple/lacks variation/etc.
Suggestions
- Make blocking/parrying useful (lowering stamina cost drastically in some way), this will change the make the melee less about all out offense and add some more incentive for timing and thinking ahead.
- Stop the "headless chicken + whack-a-mole" fights by changing the way stamina/sprint works. For example adding a separate sprint timer which lasts for a short while.
- Make it possible to dodge/roll/move away from attacks in a more responsive/effective way. This, especially coupled with the blocking, will stop people from just spamming LMB and actually time their attacks (thereby saving more stamina for blocks and so on).
- Increase damage across the board. This, coupled with the blocking, will make timing blows a lot more important, and dodging them even more so. This should also serve to reduce the fact that due to the current stamina requirements of fighting, you usually have a K ratio of 1:1 even when you get a short break between fights. You should be a threat to people even if you've lost a little hp and stamina. At the moment I feel like anyone just coming out of a fight is a free-kill that I don't have to worry the slightest bit about.
- Make melee swings work like magic/ranged in that you "charge" your strike and let it go at a certain point (full charge time depending on weapon speed).
-Put a sensible timer on potions, so people aren't spamming them.

Gathering is a tedious and mostly pointless grind (only a slight increase in yield)-
Introduce certain resources that can only be found with a high skill, or at least increase the specific yield of these and not just overall yield.
- Change it so that gathering only requires stamina and doesn't have a timer. Stamina requirement go down with skill increase.
- Introduce resources nodes that you need to find (i.e. rare bushes, rare types of wood and so on). This would serve to make exploration a lot more interesting for gatherers/crafters, as would gathering expeditions to rare locations and so on. Would also reduce the benefits of afk gathering with macros as you'll easily be ganked if you're afk'ing outside of the starter zones.
- Make macroing resources harder. This would make dedicated, "true" gatherers a lot more valuable. See the above point for one suggestion. Other suggestions are randomly spawned popups that need to be clicked if you do the same chore for an extended amount of time, or adding some sort of (relatively simple) mini-game.
- Make gathering resources more rewarding and fun overall. Most of the above points apply to this.

======================================== =====

GAME BREAKER ~ current siege mechanics
As is, the current siege mechanics will ruin the game. Being able to declare a siege for the measly cost of 1K gold and then being able to attack the city a mere 2 hours later is going to ruin this game. The grinding necessary to form a clan, claim a city and add improvements is huge. The ability to lose all that without warning while you work/sleep is unacceptable. To give the defenders a chance to protect themselves you need a few things to happen:

First there needs to be an appropriate time to respond. If the siege is declared at 4 in the morning who's even going to know it? I think a 12 hour waiting period at a minimum to get ahold of your clan members and coordinate is appropriate. During that 12 hours you should have the ability to decide what's the best time for you to defend since your the one with 99% of the risk.

Second there should be some flexibility given to the defender about when it starts. They are after all the ones risking their city and countless hours of grinding, harvesting and farming against the attackers 1K shard. Even with both sides becoming vulnerable it should be in the attackers mind they don't get to pick the final time so middle of the night tactics aren't necessarily a good idea. The defender then should have at least 12 hour or so period to set the siege time in.

1. Siege declared

2. In the next twelve hours the defenders can set the siege live time from anywhere from 12 to 24 hours after siege was declared.

3. If not set it defaults to 24 hours after siege declared.

4. Siege live. It is now 12 to 24 hours after siege declared at the time of defenders choosing.

The Ugly:
The chat and interface is lacking in usability and need reworking
-The in-game map is useless at current because you can't zoom in on it, so everything in the tribelands is condensed into one tiny area roughly the size of a box of matches on your screen.

-The journal (includes quests, clan info, and other vital things) is an unholy beast that loads from HTML for some unknown reason, and it loads SSSSLLOOWWWWLYYY, like a web page in 1994. Some claim this is because the beta is still in debug mode - I have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.

- Currently, we're still stuck with alpha slash-commands for things like inviting people to party and sharing quests.
Examples:
To invite, you must type /party_invite_player Firstname Lastname
To share quests, you must type /party_share_all_quests

It's ridiculous and completely unacceptable for a finished game.

- (Toggable) chat bubbles would make it easier to use local chat and actually get noticed

======================================== =====

In my experience, dev communication with the beta testers has been severely lacking. We want to know whether or not the devs read the forums and are aware of the points the players raise- A "known bugs" or "systems we are reworking" or "we are aware that you think this" thread
- A post by a dev saying that they have noted this issue being raised by many players
- ANYTHING that makes the testers know that their opinions matter except waiting for a patch that might never come

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

All in all I feel that Darkfall has a TON of potential, but on the whole I don't feel it meets my expectations. Combat is by far the biggest issue for me. Tasos claimed the combat was like Mount & Blade - it's not. Combat requires very little individual skill, outside of aiming your spell/arrow. Melee combat is severely lacking. In my opinion, Darkfall is close, but it's just not there yet. I think with another 3-6 months of development, it would be.

As a Beta tester, I give the game a *Potential* rating of Six out of Ten. There are way too many Fanboi's in this game to give an accurate reading of the quality of the game by browsing forums.

This game as it is now is not near a release candidate. Saying that, I really love the idea of Darkfall. I have been following this game since it's design conception. I have played most every main MMORPG that has release since EQ1 in 1999. I have Beta tested most of them. I have only played on PvP servers or PvP versions of the games.

On to the good points:

The FPS style combat is unique and interesting, especially ranged weapons
The graphics are better then I originally expected
The game performance is not bad considering the level of the graphics
The ability to sneak around is a great implementation
The world is huge

On to the bad points:

Melee combat is very boring and monotonous, you select a weapon, strafe around your opponent for a few minutes clicking your left mouse button to swing and thats about it...
The User Interface is very basic and not very polished
The Chat Interface is pre-EQ1 in design
The world is very "sterile" feeling, it has very few NPC's and the cities feel empty. I could run for half an hour and not see an NPC or another player
Having FPS style combat means lag is much more important/detrimental then normal MMORPG's. If someone has a much lower ping time then you, they WILL have an advantage.
You have to pretty much group up to do anything in the game, sorry solo'ers.
A lot of the original game features are not being released

I give Darkfall a Six out of Ten in potential success a few months after release if they fix A LOT of things. It is a niche game and will never have a huge following. If quite a few things aren't fixed in the first few month's of release I believe the game will fail. If you are a North American player I would hold off until the North American servers come online. This will also give you a chance to see how the game pans out after a few months. After playing the Beta, I will not initially be purchasing the game. I am also an Eve player and it is too hard to go from something so incredibly polished to something that should still be in Beta.

I wish the Darkfall team the best of luck, I think they will be needing it. Please let me know if you have any questions.