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.

Personally, I'm glad they are restricting the names. I saw "Michelle Obama" the other day and rolled my eyes.

I don't know if this calls for a ban.

Since it's in the EULA, there's no excuse.

Originally posted by Angie-PvP

Originally posted by Hhussk

First of all, to the guy who said killing mobs is useless...you are wrong.

There's a whole skill, Skinning, that is based entirely on skinning mobs (and not other players, although that would be a good idea). For example, if you skin a goblin, you can get a goblin tooth, or an eyeball...maybe other stuff. Those things can be used in crafting.

So yes, you can harvest mobs...with a good reason.

NOW, about the state of Darkfall.

Darkfall has two real problems that I can identify. One, as of this weekend (and latest patch), the game seems to be crashing a lot. I spent less time playing this week because of it. It was down Friday, nearly all day (U.S.A. time), I believe it was down a few hours on Saturday, Sunday, and is currently down as I speak.

Clearly, Darkfall must fix this our they will fail.

Secondly, cheaters/hackers. If the Darkfall staff needs to figure out how to clean the hackers out. While aggressive GMing is useful and works, there should also be some automatic checks. Through youtube, you can see "sticky", invisible, superjump, autoloot (which is actually just a macro/script, but still illegal), fighting will in a tree, fighting under the ground, and the malicious "Teleport" hacks.

This is just too much. There's no such thing as a fair fight, and furthermore, knowing that cheaters are running around makes you leary of anyone you encounter because you're wondering if they beat you fairly.

 

Tasos: Most of the people posting about cheating in Darkfall aren't even playing the game and are doing so to create an impression. The only way to really know what’s happening in the game is to ask a few players you know for a fact are playing how many times they’ve seen people using exploits since we started banning for it.

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=3158788#post3158788

 

 

 

If you are contesting my honesty, my character's name is Vhaihl Mhuloch. Obviously, I don't have to tell you which server I'm on. I've personally seen (and been killed) by hacks.

Darkfall Online has incredible potential. I love much of the game...but they do need to work on the areas I pointed out or things will go "south" fast.

First of all, to the guy who said killing mobs is useless...you are wrong.

There's a whole skill, Skinning, that is based entirely on skinning mobs (and not other players, although that would be a good idea). For example, if you skin a goblin, you can get a goblin tooth, or an eyeball...maybe other stuff. Those things can be used in crafting.

So yes, you can harvest mobs...with a good reason.

NOW, about the state of Darkfall.

Darkfall has two real problems that I can identify. One, as of this weekend (and latest patch), the game seems to be crashing a lot. I spent less time playing this week because of it. It was down Friday, nearly all day (U.S.A. time), I believe it was down a few hours on Saturday, Sunday, and is currently down as I speak.

Clearly, Darkfall must fix this our they will fail.

Secondly, cheaters/hackers. If the Darkfall staff needs to figure out how to clean the hackers out. While aggressive GMing is useful and works, there should also be some automatic checks. Through youtube, you can see "sticky", invisible, superjump, autoloot (which is actually just a macro/script, but still illegal), fighting will in a tree, fighting under the ground, and the malicious "Teleport" hacks.

This is just too much. There's no such thing as a fair fight, and furthermore, knowing that cheaters are running around makes you leary of anyone you encounter because you're wondering if they beat you fairly.

Greetings, Original Poster. I pretty much concur with all your statements. There are some minor exceptions.

The "chat" in Darkfall is about as good as it gets for unregulated chat. That means, all the same crap, but less of the gold selling. Why? Because now you can kill the seller. The one thing that would make it more tolerable would be GM regulation over the chat channels. I believe, at this time, that will not occur.

Pretty much you were spot on accurate. I would like to emphasize how strong combat is. Recently, I decided to perch on a ridge and keep an eye out for travelers (I was just seeing how well strategy plays into this game). When a band of "raiders" come into the area, I'm capable of telling the people in my area.

What am I getting at? You can literally be a lookout in this game.

But it goes much further.

If you are caught be surprise, you can literally be engulfed in the "fog of war". In other words, you have no idea who the enemy is...people are running around in a frenzy, some people may even attack the wrong people in return. This is truly warlike, because in war...communication is the key.

It's a great strategy based game. IMO, of course.

Originally posted by Katrar

One of the stronger bulkwards of fanboy defense of this game seems to be the "lack of content by design" IE pure pvp gameplay.

I know I can't be the only one that has not forgotten that a large amount of PVE was intended to be included in this game, but that it has been almost completely stripped out because they don't know how to scale. IE their technical design was fubared.

So, to fanboys: you are full of it. Pure PVP was never the intended focus of this game, there was a strong interest on the part of the devs to include PVE content. They droned on and on about the work they put into AI, the adventures to be had in exploration, etc.

They broke their own game and now, to cover your own failures of objectivity, it was according to you all by design.

Wool.

Pulled over.

Eyes.

Original Poster, thanks for  your comments.

Perhaps you are correct that some, or a lot, of the PvE content was intended and is now missing. In all honestly, I don't see it as a problem. The game doesn't appear to be broke, at least, not from the inside.

I was never a follower of Darkfall. I listened to the vaporware threads and wondered if it was truly a scam. But, original poster, I think you are wrong this time. The game clearly has a lot of "meat" to it, and more than "meets" the eye.

One of the things that impresses me the most is how good a game can be with "friendly fire". In my opinion, it makes the other MMORPG games seem fairly...weak and afraid.

Take World of Warcraft, for example. On an instanced run, I could play a Warlock, cast many AOE spells, and never even worry about hurting my allies.

Not so in Darkfall. Any spell you cast, and sword cut you make, can hurt those around you. A careless mage or fighter could kill his own party. To me, this makes the battle extremely more cautious.

Anyhow, I welcome your thoughts, but just wanted to say that if Darkfall promised PvE, I suppose that they'll have time to throw it in as weeks and months roll by. Either way, I'm extremely happy with what I'm seeing.

Original Poster, thanks for the questions. Good luck on your gaming.

One of the more interesting aspects of Darkfall is the "friendly fire" concept. Well, it's not actually a concept - it's just that its more realistic. If you cast a spell and hit other people, you'll hurt them. If you swing a sword blinding and a player is between you and the monster, you'll hit him in the back for extra damage.

Therein lies the part of the strategy. To use your attacks, you must navigate the "complete" battlefield, not just the where the enemies are. Your defense can be as simple as hiding behind a tree, or standing on top of a rock. All of these things can be used to your advantage.

Magic, is still a mystery. Few have excelled at the craft, and much of the lore can only be discovered through experimentation and treasure. What I do know if that you can train your character to cast faster, use less mana, and even work each spell independently in level. For example, I could train my Lesser magic to level 25, but Mana Missile, a Lesser magic spell, could also be trained in 25 levels.

Lots of technique is involved in Darkfall combat. A simple trick could be letting your opponent wear himself out. All attacks are initiated with Left-click, but you have a hotbar that you use to queue up different attacks.

Originally posted by merv808

Originally posted by Hhussk

Originally posted by mindw0rk

 Those with the best graphics of course. LoTRO/Vanguard/..

 

I completely disagree that graphics causes immersion. It's how the world and people interact that maintains the illusion.

 

Edit: Age of Conan, based on your statement, would be the best MMO, and I fundamentally disagree.

 

I agree. None of these games can top the immersion of a pen and paper games where everyone imagines the world around them.

You are right on the mark. The Pen and Paper will always be the most dynamic, fluid and interactive.