I would <3 to receive a key and help test this game. TY

x

Although an alright mmo--if you don't mind evading the new macro police Gms that have suddenly started to enforce their rules--DF is far from a Sandbox.

Housing areas are organized and designated by AV/Developer

Player city locations and designs are again, organized and designated by the Dev

the skills that you can learn are not even close to UO in scope and span

just 3 things off the top of my head, but there are more

Good post and very valid points.

This game is as level based as any MMO I have ever player; it just has its grinding packaged a little different. I'm glad I played DF because it has made me appreciate the fact that although I like PvP, I like the old DAOC pvp setup far more, i.e. BGs on the way up to gain XP and have fun and then a chaotic and fairly FFA PvP environment for max lvl characters.

My thoughts don't mean DF is a bad game, but it does has levels based attributes that are > than "player skill" unless you take two very close end game characters.

Oh ya, and for anyone that is thinking of trying the game...you will grind to "level" up stats, just like other mmos have you "level" up to gain abilities and automatic stats increases. 

As good as early DAOC was, Mythic lost its focus well before EA came in and starting digging the grave. Mythic lost focus of what made their game great and instead of focusing on improving the existing core gameplay, like putting resources into updating the gfx engine and existing classes' particular abilities, they went ahead with TOA and that was the beginning of the end.

I would rather actually play a very updated pre-TOA DAOC I, as in not have to buy a boxset/expansion, but more like resub when they release a completely rolled back DAOC with a UNREAL 3 DAOC and maybe a revamped RvR experience. Tweak siege stuff, tweak the Frontiers as in bring back the OF style of rolling and undulating terrain instead of the new Frontiers--fairly flat or sharp cliffs.

I would basically bring back the Old frontiers with a slight change--make two to three ways out of the Realm Keep area.

I have some more ideas but basically I want a tweaked-up old Daoc and I would resub in a minute

you got  it!!

and I will not be going boldly....

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by Rondo

All good ideas and it just goes to show anybody who thinks designing a good, yet "complex" gameplay system in order to overcome so called "design obstacles" of MMO isn't that hard...all you have to do is WANT to put in the effort.
 

 

Yet like so many before you, you've (conveniently) left out just what the practical application of player-operated crews' would entail. Multiple players standing around in a static bridge, staring at LCARS terminals while monitoring gauges and buttons?

Do you honestly believe that would have either mass or long-term appeal?

SWG tried it with POB ships, and even under the context of fast-paced, "dogfighting" type action, and it was still as boring as watching paint dry.

Except that you fail to mention in the one Sci-Fi game that actually IMPLIMENTS the very type of system we are talking about now.... Starquest Online...

 

Starquest who? Does it have mass or long-term appeal?

Fear not, I don't believe my "rhetoric" has been disrupted.

Ah ic, someone actually answers your question with a very viable answer and you turn to general blather. You can't compare Star Trek with Starquest in terms of recognition. If STO was to have a similar, yet modified for the IP system it would obviously already have a great advantage of name recognition and of coarse it would have a much, much broader subscribership than Starquest.

Please, Han, don't get stupid

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Originally posted by Mors-Subita

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Yamota 

I agree on all your points beside the player crew thing as that would be extremely dificult to properly implement in an MMORPG and still be fun. For example, what if noone is online to man your science officer spot? Or medical officer? First officer?

Do you replace them with an NPC. If so, how do you make AI so good that it can replace a real person? Not possible with current AI tech.

You don't want the NPC to be equal to a player. It's the same point about solo versus group content. Given the logistical problems with grouping, groups have to be more capable than soloing to be worthwhile.

What if more people want to be captain than a science officer? Would you force people who wants to play a captain to play science officer?

Captains would be a separate class, and would have their own ship.

The list of problems goes on and on. It would be very hard to implement such a system imo.

Nope. Not hard at all. Stay tuned.

 

So what you are saying is that if you want to be a captain of your own ship, you have to be the captain class? how about people who started out as science officers and want to get their own ship? ok, so we allow class changing? what limitations... how about if I am a captain, but I want to play with you and you are a captain? we can't be on the same ship? ok, we can be but... what? I guess I will twiddle my thumbs while you pilot it around?

Also, say I start the game and I don't start it with a whole group of friends, I just get it myself... As a science officer I will be on what ship? I don't know anybody... Ok, I get randomly stuck with someone, I don't like them... How often can I change ships?

Well, I log in and I am on the ship and my captain is off to do something that I don't want to do... Am I stuck going along for the ride? Ok, well just chill in the holodeck(as per your earlier point)... So my only options are to do whatever the other person wants or sit in the holodeck? Ok, lets change ships... how exactly do you do that while you are en-route to somewhere?

These can all be addressed multiple ways. They have been discussed a million times already on this board. However here is the way  *I* would impliment it (MMO_Doubters solution may be different).  It would require the invention....in the 30 years that elapsed since the last episode... of one thing that would be a nod to game-play over cannon... long distance beaming between fixed points.

Your character starts out (after the tutorial) as an Ensign fresh out of StarFleet Academy.... or the equivalent for other factions. This gives you BASIC TRAINING in all the skills neccesary to fill any duty station aboard a starship.... you may not be particularly GOOD at working that station (i.e. no skill bonuses) but you can physicaly work the station. Think of it this way....in the Army even a tank driver, file clerk or cook knows how to load and fire a rifle....you may not want them assigned to a fire team in a hostage rescue mission....but they can do the basics when needed to in a pinch.

From there you pick a basic Branch career to pursue (science, engineering, tactical, medical, helm, etc). This gives you more advanced training in the skills required to fill the duties associated with that particular branch. You also get a bunch of ELECTIVE skill points that you can use to dump into other skills as you choose.... this represents CROSS-TRAINING in other disciplines.

Essentialy this means you could have a SECONDARY career (if you dumped all your points into one area) .... that you could pursue and be profficient in...not as good as your primary...but still useful from a play purposes.

So you could have a person that specialized as a Tactical Officer (Branch School) and was top notch at that duty for thier level. Had cross-trained in Helm (Elective Skills) so that they could piolet the ship with reasonable profficiency (say 3 levels below thier level) if a dedicated helmsman wasn't available.... and had enough basic training that they could work a transporter console (Basic Training)  under ROUTIENE conditions if no Engineer was around....but not under any sort of stressfull conditions.

Now for content..... disregarding OTHER types of content (crafting/research, etc) and speaking strictly in terms of Missions. Missions are divided into 2 types of content: SOLO & GROUP.

SOLO Content - You got your closest Mission Hub (probably a starbase for Starfleet or the equivalent for other factions) and request a "Duty Assignment" from the Duty Officer. There are a variety of different types of missions available but basicaly they break down into 2 categories.... Ground and Space.

      - Ground Missions (i.e. Track down Klingon Spy on Starbase, Ground Survey of Planet X). Your long distance beam or take a warp-shuttle to the specified location and carry out the mission. Pretty much works the way it would now in STO.

     - Space Missions (i.e. Find the hidden Orion Pirate base in the Asteroid Field). You get to REQUISITION a starship based upon your Presitiege (basicaly your current rank). For an Ensign you might get a small runabout....a Captain might get a frigate, etc.  The ship is designed to be controled solo....either as a 1 person crew or using NPC's as cryptic does now. At a certain rank you MAY even be able to get a permanantly assigned ship/crew that you can use for such missions (just like Cryptic is doing now). The key is that these ships will be of a SMALLER class then the ones you could get for group content.

 

GROUP CONTENT - You goto the nearest Mission Hub an ask for an assignment from the Duty Officer (as above). You now have the option to put together your group....Just like other MMO's this can be your Guild-Mates or PUGS that you advertise for.

  - Ground Missions. Same as currently done in STO...except not everyone is a Captain. Members of your group beam or take warp shuttles to the location...meet there and perform the mission.

 - Space Missions. You have 3 options for ships.... A) You can requesition a ship to use for the mission just as you did in the SOLO content.....yet this ship will be bigger and designed to be flown by multiple players.  B) You can use your own personal permanently assigned ship just as with solo....except now the NPC crew members are being replaced by Player positions.  C) You can use a GUILD OWNED SHIP (that your Guild has collectively "purchased" and is a permanent asset of thiers) that you have PERMISSIONS to check out.  Once the ship is settled on ....the players LONG DISTANCE BEAM from wherever they are to aboard the ship.  If a player drops, they can BEAM OUT to a location they have preset (like a Starbase)....If you want to ADD a player...they can BEAM IN once they join your group.

 

RAID Content - Same as above...but now you are crewing MULTIPLE, Multi-Player Crew Ships.

 

Note that this sort of system allows for the same sort of diversity in group/solo content that exists in other MMO's. It allows for players to be in command and complete control of a vessel (albiet a smaller one for solo) WHEN THEY WANT TO.... and to play as part of a crew....WHEN THEY WANT TO (and can find the right people).  It allows for people who want to play something other then the captain/commander to do so. It is no more difficult then ANY OTHER MMO that has classes that fill different roles (Tank, Healer, DPS) to put together a group to do content. It also allows people to fill in, albiet to a lesser degree, for a particular class/branch/duty station in a pinch when some-one of the appropriate branch is not available..... or when some-one drops. It allows you to have your own permanent ship which you canh customize....a ship that you can jointly own with others (i.e. Guild Houses, Cities, etc) which can be JOINTLY customized....and to be able to insure that you have the appropriate type of ship availble to do any mission you can get assigned....when you need it.

Would such a system take more money/time to develop well then STO's current design.... UNDOUBTEDLY.... but I would contend not significantly more so then any other big budget title these days. Probably no more so the LOTRO took...or TOR will take. With big budget title resources it should be entirely possible to do.

However, it's probably NOT the type of game that Cryptic could make in a 2 year development cycle...while reusing the CO engine and working on another project that's just been released (CO) at the same time....with what thier budget contraints (I'm guessing) likely are.

No....this type of game would have to be the dedicated project of a Blizzard, BIOWARE, TURBINE, etc.... to probably pull off well.

 

 All good ideas and it just goes to show anybody who thinks designing a good, yet "complex" gameplay system in order to overcome so called "design obstacles" of MMO isn't that hard...all you have to do is WANT to put in the effort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by BloodDuality

I can see some sort of player crews being interesting. With only players taking on the main roles that the main characters of the shows do. When real players or friends are not online to play one of the roles for you then you would have ncp controled people much like henchmen from Guild Wars.

This would allow for players to join the crew only if they want to play and explore together on the same ship. This sort of thing minght be able to please both camps, those that all want to control their own ship as captain, and those that want to be a part of a ship and play with friends.

This is just a very simplified thought of course.

ya good idea and fix to the "oh none of my crew is online' argument. Or I would even go one further, they could make some sort of LFG crew option, which would allow people to sign in a standing que to potentially join a crew in need of a replacement. Not hard to implement.

I have been shaking my head silently about how Cryptic has approached this project. How the hell could they mess this IP up. Hmm, by not having a few key features that any real STO fan would want and expect.

All they had to do was start coding this game with a few pillars of gameplay

1) Ships with Player crews

a) each player could have chosen to be a Engineer, Science officicer, medical officer, security officer, and instead of havinga "captain" per se, and this is one non IP addition--just allow the players to figure out who wants the mantle on and given time-frame. However, whoever was Captain would be required to make "cruicial decisions" throughout multiple choice PvE story arcs/quests, so the mantle would be important.

b) Factional warfare with these factions: Federation, Klingons, Romulans PSST Crytpic you could have ripped of DAOC's "three realm" idea and put the STO spin on it.

c) Have each ship have a crafting "bay", or engineering area--whatever--you want to call it. Have each class be able to craft down a line that made sense for their class. Make the system in-depth and integrate travel to systems and exploration of new systems/worlds for resources required by all the crafting trees. This would really make questing and exploration both a focus and integral part of the game as a means to an end for crafting "materials".

Also allow player crews to build their own craftingn stations out in deep space on planets where they would have to come back to in order to build larger modules or utilize equipment for certain crafting projects that could not be done on the ships smaller crafting/engineering bays. These waystaions could also be caches for player crews goods, ala caln banks etc for bulk resources etc.

d) Make on-the-surface combat between people FPSMMO--I mean cmon, who would want to see them FPS with a phaser while shooting hostile aliens, or battling a Klingon counter force over a resource area of a peaceful race of alien for some sort of exp etc.

These are just four pillars that I would have used as my foundation and made sure would have been in for launch...no matter what!
 

I'm not the biggest Trekkie as I would only use my time to actively follow the old crew, tv shows , movies etc; however, the entire series is solid sci-fi and I find a real shame that Cryptic seems to be butchering what I see as a no brainer for what could be a very solid MMO, maybe even an exceptional one.

1) yes

2) yes

3) not atm

4) not really, you still have the normal attack that generally has the side-to side motion and the alternate attack that brings your weapon up and down ( for close quarters since there is FF) However; there are a few special attacks that have a "thrusting" animation, like the Pole arm power attack, but tbh, these are pretty hard to hit anything in pvp...the side to side default if the easiest except for maybe Whirlwind ( but that a specialized)

5) no jousting as what you are looking for

6) not really anything effective as the those you don't really like. Although I would love to see a throwing spear type weapon

7) no, just full loot, i'd say that is enough but to each his own.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

 

---

In other words, I have to disagree about skill and stats suggestions the OP mentionned. It won't work in DF. Each races already have their pros and cons and they will grow in the near future too. 

Also, there is already a very powerfull penality on Rogue which makes them unable to enter a NPC City or the Guard Tower will kill them. What should change though is that a Rogue should not be able to gain Alignements for killing the same target more than twice within 1-2 hours (forcing players to stop going rogue for 5 seconds than farm blue alignment by using their alts).

This change would really help the entire "alignment system".

I just wanted to update this thread for what it's worth, because my post about my technical problems could be possibly construed as a slight against Darkfall.

I called EVGA and told them about my heat issue and they said to RMA that 295 GTX pronto; the card should never get that hot in any game, even if it only happened in one. In fact, the tech guy said it was probably just the first sign of something that would begin to show in other 3D intense games soon enough. So hey he's the tech guy and I RMA'd it and will eventually see if the new one works.

I called a buddy that just upgraded his vid card to a Radeon 5XXX (not sure which one) and he came over with his old card aa 260 GTS. And after installing this card I am playing Darkfall without a hitch at a steady 70+ FPS, no overheating!

GFX in this game are actually quite nice. Ok, well I need to get back to running from 3-4 goblins <cough> chasing down goblins. Having fun and I can safely say that it was the video card itself and not this game.

Originally posted by Jeffs

Originally posted by Fishermage

Once again he shows his ineptitude, and why he is completely unqualified for the position he has. No understanding of the nuances of international protocol. To bow deeply before royalty shows subservience, not respect -- something a president should never do.

Read up on Japanese culture. You regularly flaunt your education I'm surprised you haven't taken this opportunity.

Welp, I made the leap today and landed in a big pile of pooh, but let me explain:

I installed the game. Patched the game. Loaded the game. All was fine. And then bam! Not more than 2-3 minutes of just being in the game, standing in the starting area, the red light on my video card turns on and the screen goes black and locks up. My video card was hot, hot, and did I say hot!

Ok so by now you're like oh, he has a shite card, wrong drivers, bad system, etc. Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

i7 2.66

GTX 295 EVGA latest 1907 drivers ( ya the ones that add SLI support specifically for Darkfall, among others)

6GB memory

blah blah...the werid thing is that I can play Aion, MW2, Crysis, WAW, DAO, etc for hours on end without my card getting hot. So what's the deal? I went to post this problem onthe tech forums (minus some of the colour provided here) but I haven't been sent privledges yet, so does anyone know any known issues with this overheat issue?

EDIT: This happens everytime I tried logging in afte reinstalling the game etc; however, I only did it a few times because my card would just get to hot and I shut it off as sson as it did to prevent any serious damage. I also loaded up Aion, MW2, and DAO immediately after this incident with my new Darkfall game and nada, nothing, no heat.

QQQQQQQQ

Thanks for all the replys. It sounds like the hacking that I had seen on Youtube, and readabout on the forums after launch, have been for the most culled.

I'm going to take the plunge!

And I want the real skinny on my question, because it's the one thing I can't accept in any mmo so here it goes:

I have read a lot of bad stuff about hacking in DFO; I don't mean the macro cheating for skilling up, which I've read seems to be somewhat fixed by the increased pve exp patch they put in. I mean is there legitmate hacks in this mmo.

I am seriously contemplating investing the cash for the deal they have atm, but I would also like some current players' opinions on whether there are hacks in this mmo.

/much appreciated

Whether it was DAOC2 or a heavily upgraded DAOC1, I know that myself and quite a few of my gaming buddies would be back paying for the game in  a minute

Anyone who says, "get a new machine" in this case of Aion are fanbois. The same crashes kept happening to me in large Fortress battles and I have just about the best CPU and the best GPUs/SLI 2x295GTX out atm.

So basically I think all the people who say they haven't crashed at some point in a large siege battle in Aion is either a fanboi, a lier, or both.

I just can't seem to understand why Mythic doesn't put this on the front burner.

1) No huge overhead cost with license

2) Foundation is there

3) Mistakes of TOA have been learned

4) I don't know a person irl that I used to play the game with would not jump at the opportunitty to play a Daoc 2 with updated gfx and a old Daoc "ish" slant.

Maybe I'm just being to nostalgic but I would like this to happen.

/discuss