If i start the game as a Dwarf, walk out the gate and run into nothing but Dwarf on Dwarf Gank Love then i probably wont stay long.

If i start as a Dwarf and every Orc who sees me attempts to kill me then i have no problem at all and will stay around.

First of all to have a good class system you have to throw out the whole balance term. Classes do not have to be balanced but every class should have a use or specialty.
 

Also the best class systems are skill based, like EQ was. You were not able to build all the skills in your class so you actually had to think and make decissions. And no going to some NPC and resetting when you figured out you gimped yourself, you just started over or lived with it.

EQ had a fantastic class system. I thought they did everything well except for perhaps the Ranger, it was really hard being a Ranger because you were so unloved.
Vanguard falls under here also because it was pretty similar.

DAOC had a pretty good class system also.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

The best class system is no class system. Skill based is infinitely better.

Opinion much?

Here, i will do it to, You are wrong.

Skill systems are the best for those people that feel they should be able to do everything, like wear full plate, use a 2H Sword, do full heals and shoot fireballs out of their asses.

Originally posted by Ashrik

How this will translate to a game already in possession of a toxic community, we have yet to see.

None of these forums show what the community of darkfall will be. Most people on here probably wont even play the game, they just float from one forum to another spouting hate or love.

I have a feeling that the community of Darkfall probably wont be very good though. The PVP community that the old UO players remember is not the same PVP community that is around now. Just pop onto a WoW PVP server and you will see that.

Originally posted by Grunties

Originally posted by safwd

Originally posted by wolfmann

Originally posted by safwd

No global chat is good for a pure PVP game.

It is however bad for building a game community.

But perhaps there is no such thing as a good game community anymore.

 

Funny that NO GLOBAL chat built the SWG community, and that it actually was one of the reasons almost all SWG players(Pre-NGE) says SWG was the best community game.

 

Ya, you may be right.

But EQ had global chat and most ex EQ players will say that EQ was the best community game.

 

Maybe good communities depend on the quality of the people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with global chat. Perhaps both SWG and EQ had the types of players condusive to good communities.

Actually forget everything i said. EQ did not have totally open global chat. It had /tell, /shout, /say and /whisper as well as guild chat.
 

Originally posted by wolfmann

Originally posted by safwd

No global chat is good for a pure PVP game.

It is however bad for building a game community.

But perhaps there is no such thing as a good game community anymore.

 

Funny that NO GLOBAL chat built the SWG community, and that it actually was one of the reasons almost all SWG players(Pre-NGE) says SWG was the best community game.

Ya, you may be right.

But EQ had global chat and most ex EQ players will say that EQ was the best community game.

Originally posted by Talin

Originally posted by safwd

Call  me a fool, but i find it kind of refreshing that we arent getting a lot of info about the game.

I can give you two games that no one had any trouble getting information about and videos of or anything else before launch, AOC and Vanguard. Enough said there i think.

Maybe the game will be great, maybe it will flop, maybe i will like it, maybe i wont. But at least im not reading reports every day from the developers saying that this is in and that is in etc etc and then paying money to find out it was all lies.

I would agree, except for the fact that it is so easy to not lie. I won't call you a fool though. 

Provide a nice list of features in (aka, DONE), and those that are planned for the future. It is THAT EASY.

Let's not mix-up a general lack of communication with a warm feeling of suspense. Not playing the game before release is a change in and of itself. Not knowing what the game has in it.... Well, why would someone bother buying it then?

Oh i agree with you, honesty would be great. But until that actually happens i am content with less lying.
 

I dont actually think it is possible that they are going to have every thing from their list in the game when it launches, and im fine with that. As long as that list doesnt disappear as soon as they get a little money. Im all for adding things in after the game is launched.

Ship to ship battles sound fantastic, but i dont care if they are in at launch. Im pretty sure that you arent going to be able to buy/make a ship at launch and hopefully not for a few months at least so im fine with that being added in after launch. We just have to look at it realistically, not as a troll and not as a fanatic. The fanatics have to except that it may not launch with everything and the trolls have to realise that if it doesnt that doesnt make it a failure.

Call  me a fool, but i find it kind of refreshing that we arent getting a lot of info about the game.

I can give you two games that no one had any trouble getting information about and videos of or anything else before launch, AOC and Vanguard. Enough said there i think.

Maybe the game will be great, maybe it will flop, maybe i will like it, maybe i wont. But at least im not reading reports every day from the developers saying that this is in and that is in etc etc and then paying money to find out it was all lies.

I will wait and see how its reviewed before i pay for it. If they do have the free trial for everyone that would be great but im skeptical that it will happen.

I have not been happy with a game release since EQ and DAOC so i cant do the pre-order thing any more, my disappointments are too many. (Horizons, EQ2, Lineage 2, WoW, CoH, LoTR, Vanguard to name a few)

EQ3- Yes please, i will take some of that.

But i would like it to be much more EQ1 then EQ2. I loved EQ and played it for 4+ years but i could never get into EQ2 for any length. I preordered and bought a new rig so i could play EQ2 with all the bells and wistles and was really disappointed. After a couple months of it i was back in good old EQ. I have gone back to EQ2 a few times and its the same thing. I play for a short while and meh. It just doesnt grab me like the original.

I would love it if they used the original EQ rule set (the trilogy), they can use the same races and classes (though a few tweeks would be nice) and put it all on a new world.

That is probably the only game i would pre-order ever again. And yes, i agree, get Brad McQuaid to design it.

Had to add some more. The only thing i found really lacking in original EQ was the Diety system, and i think EQ had the best Diety system of any game out. I would really like them to do more with it though. Your choice didnt do all that much for you, it did affect faction some but i would like more to it. Maybe an extra ability or spell specification. Maybe your choice makes you KOS with another gods worshippers. I think it would be awesome if you have a PVE game with concentual PVP but if there are two feuding gods their worshippers are automatically PVP enabled against each other. You dont have to fight but you can, and if you do and win you might get a small boon. I love this idea and wish i had the brains to develop my own game.

No global chat is good for a pure PVP game.

It is however bad for building a game community.

But perhaps there is no such thing as a good game community anymore.

Originally posted by mcpoopypantz

Originally posted by ElendilasX

They can say that there wont be levels, but skills are same thing. Just think about skills like level.

 

No.. they arent the same thing. A level 70 can kill infinite level 1's.... someone maxed out skills in DF can probably kill a few lowbies.. btut a group would kill him....

So you say. I want to see it happen before i will believe it.
 

Yes yes, if you want to really be hardcore have Permadeath discussion.

And if they make the game Permadeath im sure that one guy and his 8 friends who lives in his parents basement will love playing it.

Permadeath is only fun once, then it just sucks.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by CausticSushi

EQ wasnt a sandbox because there was no definition of "sandbox" back when it came out. It was new.

You could say that EQ defined it though...

 

Uhm, do you know what the concept of sand box means? It basically means you can go anywhere and do anything (within reason) rather than being tunneled into level specific zones from level 1-XX (like EQ).

I dont know the definition of themepark game but the two concepts I know of are sandbox and linear and EQ was definetely a linear game where as AC 1 and UO were sandbox.

Yes EQ was linear in that it had levels, that makes in Linear. But there is no way that a skill based game is any different when you are talking about hunting. Mobs have to have some form of level associated with them be it by a actual Level or by the amount of skills they have which make them fight harder. And different areas in Darkfall will have monsters that are more difficult to fight and thus you wont go there and hunt until you have played for awhile and gotten the skills required to actually survive the area. EQ was the exact same way, they just put a visable level on things.

Can you go anywhere you want and hunt in a skill based game, of course but if you venture into areas where the mobs are stronger then you you will die.

In EQ i could take my level 10 guy into a level 50 dungeon if i wanted to. I would die as soon as i zoned in but i could do it if i wanted to.

Plus these level specific zones that you speak of in EQ were often Level 15-40 or something like that. It make it pretty exciting. Yes there was a progretion to the zone but often the game didnt follow any rules on where mobs should roam.

EQ was not a sandbox but again it had sandbox elements in it. The only real sandbox is Second Life.

Health has to increase in the game. Or if not health then the ability to not get hit as much.

If not it will be far more easy to die after you have been playing for a long time then it was when you started because hits will be alot harder.

Of course it makes sense that hit points would go up. Look at it like boxing, when you start learning it doesnt take much for a guy to knock you on your butt, but when you master boxing you are able to take many more hits before you go down. Some is based off defense but some is based off your ability to take more damage.

I also dont agree that it should be armor based. Im all for armor decreasing damage taken by certain weapon types but your health should not be completely armor based.

For the ex UO people, how was it done in UO?

I have never played a strickly skill based game and i have been wondering about something.

How are Hit Points or Life determined in a skill based game. Easy to figure out in a level based game but im not seeing how it works in a skill based game.

Thanks for the insight.

Originally posted by Blodpls

Originally posted by safwd 

Wrong.

EQ in no way was a theme park. There was no holding your hand and guiding you through EQ. You popped up day one in a pair of pants with a rusty weapon and said "So what am i going to do now?"

No quest lines leading you by the hand, Quests were actually quests in EQ, not a means for gaining EXP.

EQ had so many of the things that Darkfall is talking about having that the new theme park games feel are only timesinks. You want sandbox, you had to worry about weight, you had to have spell components, you had to have food and drink, you had to meditate, you had to actually go get your spells and mem then vise just having them pop up on your spell bar, there was no instancing, it Was skill based and you had to build those skills manually, no going to a weapons master, giving him some coin and being an expert in 2HS. You actually had to think and make decissions because you were probably not going to be able to purchase all your spells each level or build up all the skills that you could use.

EQ had classes and levels which is the only thing it shares with todays theme park games.
These are the things that make Darkfall interesting to old time EQ players, most of us are excited about the game because of these things it offers and are willing to deal with the open PVP to get them.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this as it has levels which means that you can only play in certain areas at each level so effectively the game is on rails just like themepark games, although the rails are less obvious.  Even if you are in a group of 500 people you still couldn't go to higher level zones and stand much of a chance.  For example if crafting is limited by levels and you can't level through crafting alone then this would disqualify it in my eyes from being a sandbox game. I haven't played it though so that's just an assumption.

BAH
 

I have never played a strickly skill based game but i cannot believe that it is any different in a skill based game with no levels. People can say all day long that a player who has been playing only a week can kill a player who has been playing for months because it is skill based and i will say SHENANIGANS!!! The guy who has been playing months has still been able to build up way more skills then the guy playing a week so i really cant see it being much of a fight. Does the one week guy have a chance to win, sure, but i think it is a very small one.

And the mobs in game have to have some kind of level assigned to them, whether you can see that level or not. It will still be based off how many hit points it has and how hard it hits. And there wills till be areas in the game that you should not go if you have only been playing a short time because the mobs there will wipe the floor with you. Sure you can go there if you want but you could in EQ also, you would just die.

EQ was not a sandbox game, but it did have many sandbox elements in it. Far more then the games we see coming out now.

Sorry for the rant, it just pisses me off when people group EQ and games like WOW and LOTRs together. They are far different and the PVE side of MMOs have not improved with time.

Originally posted by xpiher

Originally posted by CausticSushi

EQ wasnt a sandbox because there was no definition of "sandbox" back when it came out. It was new.

You could say that EQ defined it though...

 

EQ was probably the first theme park game,

Wrong.

EQ in no way was a theme park. There was no holding your hand and guiding you through EQ. You popped up day one in a pair of pants with a rusty weapon and said "So what am i going to do now?"

No quest lines leading you by the hand, Quests were actually quests in EQ, not a means for gaining EXP.

EQ had so many of the things that Darkfall is talking about having that the new theme park games feel are only timesinks. You want sandbox, you had to worry about weight, you had to have spell components, you had to have food and drink, you had to meditate, you had to actually go get your spells and mem then vise just having them pop up on your spell bar, there was no instancing, it Was skill based and you had to build those skills manually, no going to a weapons master, giving him some coin and being an expert in 2HS. You actually had to think and make decissions because you were probably not going to be able to purchase all your spells each level or build up all the skills that you could use.

EQ had classes and levels which is the only thing it shares with todays theme park games.
These are the things that make Darkfall interesting to old time EQ players, most of us are excited about the game because of these things it offers and are willing to deal with the open PVP to get them.

Of course i am skeptic, i think everyone on this forum is a bit skeptic, even the ones frothing at the mouth about Darkfall.

Darkfall has a HUGE list of stuff that is supposed to be in game, granted not much of it is stuff that hasnt been in a game before but still a Huge list. Makes me wonder if they can produce it all.

Darkfall does not have a great record of meeting timelines. Im fine with that, they can take as long as they want, but it makes me think that the 22nd is probably not going to happen.

I am not a die hard PVP fan so i dont even know if i will like the game.

And lastly and most importantly, it is a game that i have yet to play, and since i have not really liked a just released game since DAOC came out and i have really disliked a number of them im not getting my hopes up.

Ya, i think a seperation will probably not be very apparent.

As long as there are not a ton of asshats out killing their own race i think you will have a little bit of PVE time, the map is supposed to be very large. But once your racial enemies are big enough to safely get over to your side it will be on seriously.

I am actually thinking of going Dwarf. I tend to play on the good side more then the Evil side and i think Dwarf will be the lesser played good. Plus for some reason people who play Dwarves are usually not the asshat type. I could be very wrong though.