Have to say that I'm a little surprised to hear it's closing down, given that it was relatively new in the MMO world.

While the player-base is a key componant, I bet the economy doesn't help much, either.

I sense your lack of satisfaction with MMOs. That is understandable, but you have to recognize what is occurring.

Right now, the MMO market is reaching a plateau. This is the WOW era; before was the Ultima era. What comes next will be different, however, I'm wondering if the Free2Play market may dominate for awhile.

One person said it right: It's about instant gratification. Most people can't afford to sit at a game 16 hours a day; they want to jump in, have some fun and leave.

But this is where you have a strong point. There is a certain segment of people who are interested in the "R" in "RPG". No...not typing like they are living in the Shire, but people who want a more in-depth world, where you don't simply kill someone without repercussions.

Think on that a second. If you go into town and assassinate someone, where's the threat of being thrown in jail? Arrested or even executed? What would happen if mayor banned your character from the city or even the Kingdom? What would happen if your character researched, acquired, or otherwise gained a legendary spell of power? Wouldn't others be hunting him down for the knowledge?

There's a niche for those people; it's on the way; but the technology may still have a problem covering all the possibilities.

The first time someone is killed or has the crap beat out of them, because some "rivals" in WOW took things personally, is the day Blizzard gets sued.

Just wanted to make a hearty attempt to answer the title of the thread.

What dissatisfies me more than anything else about the MMORPG is the "RPG". There's no real attempt to implement true roleplaying in the roleplaying mmo.

Sure, you might think all those cute and cuddly carebear people, with their "emotes" and dancing, are roleplayers; in truth, they aren't anymore than anyone else. What's missing, in my opinion, is a system that influences players to accomodate roleplay to acheive their goals.

For example, in your typical MMO, you can pretty much (attempt to) kill anyone you come across. What stops you? There is no justice system; you do not go to jail. Your possessions aren't taken. And what happens when you die? Nothing much, maybe 15 minutes of weakness, perhaps? There's no sense of proportion.

If a game was going to influence the RP, you wouldn't go around killing other players unless you could, strategically, work out a situation where it was plausible. In the days of AD&D, the ancient grandfather of the MMORPG, battle was only one part of the game. There was diplomacy, research, secret societies, dark magics with equally bad consequences.

The style of society in MMORPGs is basically clans and guilds. The city/realm/kingdom aspect, where laws and legislation dictate justice, barely exists.

Ah well; this comment is twice as long as I wanted and half as long as I needed. Let me just say this; many of you have never, and might never, see and feel the true aspects of roleplaying in an MMORPG. If you think there needs to be more "skill", I respect your wishes, but feel that's the wrong direction to go. Once you delve into "skill", you're usually talking about maneuvering and jump/firing while in combat. And at that point, it becomes a matter of your ping rate.

Ping...

Just wanted to say that I've played Darkfall.

And quit a few months later...

I received a 14-day pass to try it out again. Jumped in a little bit...

...and found it extremely boring.

I just can't get in to a game where everyone is a crafter, a fighter, a mage, a healer, etc.

For me, it's an issue of freedom. Most Darkfall players believe that a good sandbox means you can BE everything. I disagree. A good sandbox, in my opinion, is when you can DO everything, but DON'T because of the associated consequences and restrictions.

For example; in Darkfall, anyone can be a fighter and a mage. I'd prefer a game where the effort and training spent towards fighting makes you great with your weapons, but severely limits your ability to work magic.

If you like Darkfall, "As-Is", more power to you.

The game looks like it is dying from what I recently saw.

Originally posted by CactusmanX

So I was thinking about superheroes, since I get a big portion of my ideas from superheroes anyway I figured it was about time to think of an idea for a superhero MMO.

 

I quickly found out that traditional MMO game play would not do superheroes justice.  I like City of Heroes and Champions to a degree but both kind of miss the superhero feel.

 

So these are just some idea I though up that you would need for a super hero game.

 

Choosing Powers

 

In both CoX and CO you see a lot of nonsense combinations.  Running around using ice and psychic abilities may work for a game that uses magic but superpowers are bound by a type of logic, not to mention super powers are very thematic.

 

What I can up with is the concept of power pools.  When choosing powers you can select individual powers like acid generation but you can select more than one power.  Power pools organize powers into themed sets to force the player to pick combinations that make sense.  Acid generation could be used as it's own power, like Anarky, or it could be part of a power pool like lizard powers or plant control.  So you can also access acid powers by selecting the lizard power pool if you want to be like Copperhead or from the plant control power pool if you want to be like Poison Ivy.  Needless to say you have more utility with a power if you focus entirely on that one power the more you pick the less you can do with them because you have to focus in upgrading multiple powers.

 

Non metahuman abilities like using a staff in conjunction with say kinetic energy, is open to everyone, so you can have the ability to absorb energy and use a gun or the power to regenerate and use claws.  You can of course pick nothing but non metahuman abilities and make a Batman like character, Ironman like abilities however are considered a power since it is more than training and basic technology and uses technology to give you metahuman abilities.

 

But the idea remains that you have to pick abilities that make sense and have some rhyme and reason for being picked together, otherwise you power choice is open.

 

Using Powers

 

Traditional MMO logic will not work with super powers.  This is going back to my post about changing the way basic game play mechanics work but I think for super powers having a bunch of abilities that have small variations does not seem very superhero like at all.  Super powers should have as few abilities as possible and through physics and qualitative properties of items interact with the world.  Think about Iceman or Mr. Freeze, what abilities do they have?  Freeze things, that is it, they can use it to make an ice wall, slick the floor, ice someone’s legs or hands but all these are just applications of the same power.

 

Some powers like gadgets will have more abilities than others but the idea is to minimize the number of abilities while maximizing their usage.

 

Heroes are Created Not Born

 

One thing that CoX and CO did really well is to allow the players the ability to customize their hero’s appearance.  One thing I would add is the concept of forcing the player to look like what they are to a degree, meaning you can’t use tech armor if you are not using tech powers, you can’t have stone skin if that is not your power you can’t look like a lizard if you are not using the power pool.  Otherwise everybody and their grandma end up being cat people wearing tech armor.  But customization is king.

 

But being a hero or villain is more than costume you need a back story.  I think it would be great if you could select your hero’s back story out of a possible list of traits that determine what kind of hero or villain you are, are you driven by revenge after your family was killed?  Are you a reluctant hero ashamed of the way you mutation makes you look?  Were you a victim of an evil experiment?

 

I got this idea from the Sims 3 but based on your back story you pick you have different goals than other players that effect the way you play.

 

Life as a Hero

 

So what does a hero do all day?  Well crime fighting obviously but crime fighting does not pay the bills.  Heroes need lairs so they can train and store their equipment and you are going to need a way to pay for all that.  The first option is form a super group, more income means it is easier to fund a hideout, but you still need money.

 

Enter secret identities.  Heroes have a life outside of heroics and the development of that secret identity is what allows heroes to get money.  So what do you do as a secret identity?  Are you a scientist like Reed Richards?  An industrialist like Tony Stark?  A journalist like Peter Parker?  A soldier like Steve Rogers?

 

Traditionally superhero games have a hard time finding any room for non-combat activities.  Superheroes don’t craft do they?  No but their secret identities do.  What if your secret identity was a means to participate in non combat activities and these activities were more than finding stuff and clicking “create”, watching the little bar progress?  These non-combat activities are suppose to be very casual, like Farmville they take 10 minutes a day, they are just not boring.  After all the point of the game is to be a superhero so you should spend more time on that.  But it adds variety to a superhero game where variety is usually lacking.

 

Villains are in a similar boat; let’s face it you can’t afford your doom fortress by robbing banks alone, you eventually need to get some kind of job in a criminal organization.

 

A World in Peril

 

Something goes wrong every day and needs your help fixing it, or breaking it which ever the case may be.  Superheroes allow for a more dynamic style of game play than other settings can afford.  You never know when a robot invasion may occur or when a priceless gem arrives at the local museum that needs stealing.

 

Of course these dynamic events will come and go, you can never end the robot invasions permanently, only temporarily.  The great thing about superheroes is that the concept that everything is temporary is already accepted that it will be that way, how many times does the Joker escape from Arkham?

 

In a MMO making any permanent changes especially radical ones is always an issue but in a superhero universe things always get back to status quo.

 

No I in Team, But there is a Me

 

Super heroes team up often and when they do it isn’t some short term stint.  Supergroup options are absolutely necessary for the hero experience.  But supergroups are more than a group of heroes they are well trained teams, think of the X-Men.  Groups should have the ability to play off of one another's powers in ways more than support and defending; this goes back to the need for qualitative game play but put in context of groups.  Colossus can throw Wolverine so he can make a big devastating attack, Ironman can reflect his energy beams off of Captain America’s vibronium shield.  Super heroes need ways to work together than just being present at the same time to take down tougher challenges.  Even thawing your frozen teammate with your heat vision is a good start.

 

Trying to force tank and spank into a superhero game will just detract from the the feel of the setting.

 

With Great Power…

 

Moral choices in games are often times too simplistic but when it comes to law it works, you are either lawful or you are not.  You can walk the line rather skillfully but ultimately you will either be considered a villain or a hero because the question isn’t about right or wrong but law.

 

Instead of selecting hero or villain and sticking to it I think you should be able to move between the 2.  Heroes that turned evil, a villain that became good, it has happened before and is an interesting premise in comics.

I do agree with a lot of your assessment. Awhile back, I worked on a system for secret-identities and from what I've learned, most developers are searching for a way to implement them.

I also feel that "alignment" or choosing to be a hero or villain is the wrong way to go about a super-genre mmo. In this sort of game, you are correct, it's what you do. On some days, you'll be chased because the villain framed you. On other days, you might actually be a villain, but rewarded for accidentally saving someones life.

I believe hate Supergroups as they are currently implemented, but I would like to see more small groups (i.e. Fantastic Four, Green Arrow/Black Canary, etc). Superheroes are often more like loners and there's too much emphasis to make groups like "guilds" right now.

What's happening doesn't really tell me much about the World of Warcraft game...it tells me more about the MMO community.

I thought your article was really good. As a writer, I'm interested in picking up "Save the Cat". Thanks for that info.

On the subject of MMOs, I was thinking LoTR Online might have some beat driven quests. I tried a trial of that game and the intro seemed cinematic. 

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

WAU..i can't really believe that this GM got finally fired becuase of such stupid reason. Bill got his will by whine, moan and pillory.

Justified enough to get his stuff back but these gets simply too far IMO.

I'd have to agree for the most part. Aventurine seems to overreact. All that needed to occur was some monetary or item compensation. Making mistakes is a part of life (and MMO playing).

I'm not going to judge the situation (i.e. the player or the GM), but I will say this about MMO policies and their subscriber-base.

When MMO companies treat their players like real customers...for example, timely customer service response, "the customer is always right", etc., their people are happy.

But when the company is extremely one-sided and strict on policy, people start to quit. Yes, that's right, and I'll explain.

It is, after all, a business. And in a business, customer satisfaction is the number one form of advertisement. Players love talking about an awesome game, but players also love telling horror stories about how badly a company treats them.

And therefore, items really mean nothing. AV shouldn't even care about items; they are, after all, temporary and have durability factors. Always err in favor of the player and -- yes -- you'd have some people try to abuse that kindness, but you'll also have a loyal following.

I won't be able to drop in and make much of a reply, but I work on MMORPG structure and this topic crosses my mind often.

What if we abandoned levels?

My first thought is that it's a good thing. My second thought is that some people will, wrongly, try to turn it into a philosophical argument about the nature of a game.

In truth, it's very simple. A game without levels means greater difficulty judging your opponent.

Break it down even further - Can you beat the dragon? Can you PvP the Warlock and win? Well, now you don't know because the most direct factor in weighing your ability to kill something was your level.

So, right off, it seems like a good thing. And guess what, it also becomes a detraction against people who abuse their level prowess. Now their "kill the weaker" attitude has to be balanced with caution.

On the other side, can level truly be removed? No. There has to be some way to measure how good you are with a sword. In other words, you may not be a level 10 barbarian, but your sword skill has to have some measurement of ability and training, whether it's level 30 swordsmanship or swordsmanship 30.48% (or whatever).

If there are no measurements of skill - if you are running around and using your weapons based on your internet connection and hand-eye coordination, you are no longer playing an MMORPG.

You are playing a First Person Shooter. FPS.

OP,

I mean you no disrespect, but in the literal sense of the word, your comments are ignorant.

What I mean is, I can see you are playing the game in your own special way, but it's not entirely truthful to what happens in the course of play.

Those of us who play Darkfall can actually tell what you are doing. Basically, you are holed-up in a starter city, using it as your base for raising up stats and materials. That's fine; I'm glad for you. But let me tell you how it really works.

If you are fighting in your troll area, you always run the risk of being caught in an ambush. Especially if you are by yourself and do it regularly. Just go ahead, tell people in this thread when and where you are and I'm sure someone will be by shortly.

If you are mining minerals, be sure to watch your back. Everyone in the area can hear your pick axe chipping away at the stone. And, once again, if you are by yourself, they'll kill you just because they can.

In essence, the key is whether you are in a group or alone. If you are alone, even the good guys will kill you for your stuff.

And, by the way, I've personally experienced all the things I've just mentioned to you in Darkfall. The one grant I will give to your argument is that it is possible to harvest timber and herbs and such in a starter city, where people will refrain from attacking because of the "laser towers".

By the way, I'm not a big fan of darkfall at this time, I just feel that your "Miss" information should be put to rest.

Originally posted by Cristina1

haha I think your internet "friends" lied to you, they are all still playing :)

Well, all I can tell you is that I quit and do not plan on returning.

As far as the forums are concerned, I know, for a fact, some threads have been merged, or outright closed. A couple of them were mine.

Believe what you want...

I'll take a stab at this thread. If you look at my previous postings, you might have labelled me a fanboi.

And I have written a couple blogs about the game.

In my opinion, Darkfall is a fairly good game. I was very much interested in it since 2008. I even intended to start at the North American Server launch, but then, come Christmas, a member of my family gave me an IOU for a year's subscription to Darkfall when it came out.

I didn't have the heart to tell my son that the launch was delayed, and only released in Europe, So I started on EU-1 with the expectation for a clean transfer to NA-1 when it goes live.

Now to be fair, let me remind you that the game mechanics is pretty good. I had no problem with graphics or PvP.

What I did have a problem with was the following:

1. Aventurine, as a company, just plain sucks. They do not give you details, leaving a lot up to speculation. I was recently stunned to hear about the 3 month wait, with no items, with a transfer charge, policy.

2. Every person ends up with all the same skills, maxxed out. I find this boring. I believe that everyone from the beginning should have the ability to choose, but have limits based on their choices. There is no mage, fighter, archer, etc. There's just a bunch of guys running around in full armor with magic wands, with swords, with bows. I do not find this challenging or interesting.

3. Too much nakedness. If the game reduces you to wearing nothing, simply to be safe, then its not much of a game.

And, therefore, I cancelled my subscription about 3 weeks ago. I'll get a chance to see the expansion, but it doesn't really matter. Aventurine, once again, talks about an expansion but gives very few details. I read the 10-question interview with Claus...not impressed...he leaves more to speculation than specifics.

My friends. There's a lot of good things that could have been said about Darkfall. I'm just not interested in saying them anymore. You can look at my post history to see how my opinion has evolved.

The only thing I'm sorry about is that my son's money got wasted.

By the way, if you're a fan of Darkfall, more power to you. My only advice is to keep working at getting Aventurine to communicate with you.

I think that Mortal Online should offer a discount to Darkfall Online customers. Basically let them buy your Darkfall Online account and cancel it. In return, they'll give you 2 free months of their game.

This is a moment for Mortal Online to take advantage of the bad practices by Aventurine.

I don't really agree with the original poster on most of his comments, but I do have a sinking feeling about Darkfall at the moment.

I played Darkfall, cancelled a few weeks back.

I had no constant server downtimes or anything like that. I just felt the game lacked content.

What's bothering me at the moment, even though I am no longer a subscriber, is how they are implementing the server transfers to the North American server. It makes me glad I left when I did.

I don't know anymore...I guess I'll leave the arguing to you guys. I'm sadly disappointed in how AV has handled the game. The mechanics were fine with me...

I don't think I ever qualified as a fanboi, but I certainly wasn't a troll.

Originally posted by Electriceye

I spent a few hours at my friend's house playing/watching Darkfall (he loves the game).

I would not call darkfall garbage, but I personally think it's some way off of being an acceptable product, especially in today's market.

Even though there are people who play and enjoy this, I think it's mostly because they're yearning, starving for something new and different and would play any such game. Darkfall provides it. I think that, like my friend, they're very easy to please. It is lacking in most aspects, but provides a seamless world, full looting upon death, and twitched based combat. "What more could you want" I hear you ask? well quite a bit more actually. That's nice and all but I think people enjoying the game would discard all other elements just to have said features.

 

Good graphics?   "game doesn't need gfx. Graphics don't mean !@#$! "      

Good PvE/AI?    "game doesn't need pve, it's a ffa pvp game afterall!"

Good music/sound?    "game doesn't need this. just mute everything and play your own music!"

Easy/Accessible controls?   "game doesn't need them. You'll get the hang of it after playing for 2 days!"

Nice/Clean User Interface?    "It might be clunky, but it's functional!"

Good amount of content?     "game doesn't need content, besides its the players who are going to create and build the content!!"

Good amount of Polish?        "All MMO releases are like that!"

Fluid animations/spell effects/movement?    "Graphics whore!"

Nice/Immersive Lore?          "Lore? is this a joke? gamers dont give a !@#$ about lore."

etc.

These are just examples, not stereotype answers or anything, but it's in this vein generally. Most fans are just happy with what they have.

 

Fact is DF is not a quality product. And this is understandable as it's Aventurine's first game, they had a pretty low budget, no experience, had to release early etc. I personally did not really expect more from the game tbh.

 

 

The question I want to ask: Do you think it's OK to sacrifice all these features and components and more for the sake of the things I mentioned? I can understand why the fans are desperate for something new, but there's a limit IMO.

Anyway that's my opinion. When I play any game, I yearn for quality and polish at the very least. A smooth experience. I know I'm not alone in this.

 

Do not hate us. We're just different!

 

 

 

Ahem..: I hope the future is rosy for Darkfall fans, I wish the game well as the idea is certainly a step in the right direction, I pray for the devs to be up to the task. I don't want to take anything away from the people who are enjoying the game, more power to them.

 

 

 

 

Greetings and thanks for your opinion.

My friend, I don't hate you, but I also don't get the impression you actually played the game. Perhaps you are correct that a company with more money could have created a more flawless implemenation and initiation process to market, but I disagree with some of your comments. Markedly, they seemed to overgeneralize Darkfall.

The graphics behind Darkfall: if we truly want to discuss this than we're opening a huge debate. You see, it's fundamentally true that Age of Conan has the best graphics quality, but at the same time, Age of Conan is not considered a great game. Furthermore, Age of Conan has proven that cutting edge graphics mean fewer people can play. I believe, ultimately, that you are welcome to complain about the graphics, but there are a few important points with Darkfall that should be give credit.

1. In Darkfall, you can spot someone farther away if they wear metal, because light glints off of it.

2. The graphics are integrated into the concept of hiding and stealth (There is no "hide" skill).

Darkfall is doing pretty well on this front, and I've noticed graphic updates in patches. So, what I'm basically eluding to is that a good game is not one with awesome graphics, but one that is graphically consistant. Why? Because graphics are consistantly being changed in every game.

As well, you complained about the sound. What really threw me off was your comments about music. My friend, in Darkfall, if you are listening to music, you are probably not playing the game. I have played the game and I can tell you that most people I communicate with wear headphones to determine which directions sounds are coming from.

See, here's the problem. In darkfall, the direction of a sound can save your life. I recall once when I was mining ore the soft sound of hooves in the distance. When you wear headphones, you can turn your character in the direction of those hooves to figure out where they are coming from. This is absolutely not possible when music is playing. Those hooves are likely to be raiders and you quickly learn where to hide based on the direction of the thread.

So...music? No way. Darkfall sounds are extremely important to stealth and surviveability. This is the main reason I'm not sure you actually tried out the game.

In some ways you are correct. Darkfall has a ways to go. Me personally, I haven't had a problem with the game. I knew upon subscription that they were a small company with little money...that they were the small kids on the block. But, if you think about it, few games continue on without problems.

The impression you are putting out is one that I see from a lot of people who do not like the game. They set higher expectations for Darkfall than they would for Blizzard, Funcom, et al. And when Darkfall has issues, they use those moments to ridicule the company and call it a failure. Perhaps in time, you will see that every company has ups and downs and no one is perfect. The only thing I can tell you is that out of all the games I have played, Darkfall is currently the most intensely riveting of them.

I would expect any company to challenge a 2 out of 10 review. To not dispute such a claim would, in essence, mean that the company accepts the decision imparted to them.

Perhaps the manner in which Tasos defended himself bothers you, but I find no fault in a company defending themselves from a 3rd party.

Obviously my definition of sandbox differs from others.

Darkfall is pretty much a sandbox. The players determine the economy, and since they can create anything in the game, the prices are stabilizing depending the need. One thing I noticed, was how the price or iron ore went up shortly after a patch that caused weapon and armor durabilities to shorten and break.

Once again, players determined the pricing.

Stealth, in Darkfall, is not a button you can press. It's an act you perform in any way you can. You literally have to create your method of stealth. I'm not about to reveal mine, but some obvious factors are, hugging to shadows, hiding behind bushes and trees, staying out of the periphery of other people. Even the weapon you use becomes important. If you use magic, you'll have a magical glowing aura around you and be much easier to detect. But if you use a bow and arrow, a sniper shot can be near impossible to figure.

Therefore, stealth is determined by the player.

Politics, in Darkfall, is more complicated than an any other game of played. Now, it doesn't matter who you are simply allied with or at war with. It matters what other people in the area think about you. A clan I'm involved with literally had a meeting with all their allies, simply to determine if moving to another area was worthwhile. They sent "spies" to the are, which was quite a long journey, to gather information about other clans in the area. Troop sizes, races, current warring factions, the availability of resources.

And so, political sparring is very much controlled by the players.

Those are just a few reasons why I consider it to be a sandbox.

Ladies, gentlieman, the game has so far impressed me. What hasn't impressed me, though,  is the number of crashes and the hacking. To balance out my "glowing" commentary, those issues absolutely need to be addressed and eradicated.

I've played WoW and Runes of Magic. They are extremely similar. Extremely...with the exception that Runes of Magic allows you to dual-class.

I ended up leaving those game relatively quick. They were boring for me.

These games took all the work out of adventuring. You don't have to search for an adventure, just click the person with the gold exclamation point over his head.

What ends up happening is that you become like everyone else. What I hate the worst is that you can simply target the person and from that point on, you'll hit him.

Lastly, I find it ridiculous that you can "hide" in plain sight.

Anyhow, I gave each game about two months. I returned to World of Warcraft to give The Burning Crusade two months. I decided not to even try Wrath of the Lich King.

Runes of Magic, in my opinion, was better than WoW (probably because I didn't have to pay a dime for it), but once you realize that you will never beat a player who "Shops" for his stuff, you realize that the game is pointless. At that point, it's just a shell game.