Originally posted by branko2307

Are there alot of cinematics in game?  I just love the ones i saw and whould like to see alot more while playing the game...

I'm only 10 hours in but it seems to me like there are a lot.  I can remember at least 5, they usually give them to you at important parts in the story and boss encounters.  (Not counting the parts that are strictly dialog and conversation.  Those are everywhere.)

Originally posted by Bigdavo

If wish this game wasn't party-orientated, it's the only reason why I won't get it, I just simply cannot stand having other douches to bother with. I played Baldur's Gate completely solo, I'm not sure if I ever beat it, I think there was a point when I had to stop simply because it became too difficult to solo. It's the bothersome micro-management of characters I don't give a stuff about.

I guess there's my question, is it bothersome? Does the game 'flow' well or do you have pause every few bloody seconds and sort out your turdlings.

I'm playing the PC version on normal difficulty and I cannot zerg the encounters.  My group is around level 7, about 10 hours into the game.  I find that the less frequently I pause, the faster my group gets wiped out, so I pause very frequently to micro-manage and manually use my entire group's skills/spells.

The tactics system is supposed to assist with this, where you can set up custom filters for your group's behaviors depending on the circumstances/enemies, but I haven't spent too much time with it yet.  Most of the filters I saw were pretty basic and I find that I need to give a lot more attention to smaller details in order to win battles.  (Whenever I let the enemy AI fight my group's AI the enemy wins.  They usually far outnumber my group so that's not surprising.)

Typically I hate this type of gameplay (having to watch every single little aspect of a fight) but for some reason it doesn't bother me here.  I think the main reasons that it's not so annoying is because most skills are on moderately long cooldowns so they don't need to be spammed, and the party is limited to your main character and 3 groupmembers.  So you're paying attention to a lot of different things--but not so much that it's overwhelming or frustrating.

How about:  "Nothing else matters besides the gameplay."  Pile on anything and every little piece of fluff you can, but if the core of the game isn't engaging, believable and fun then nobody is going to be around long enough to appreciate the little things.

The art could be gorgeous but if the characters don't move in a realistic, fluid manner and allow the player to feel like he's in complete control of their movements then the artwork doesn't matter.  For example, look at WAR online--has incredible graphics but character control and response is so weak that players never feel connected to the world.

Also, breaking the world up into segments also causes players to lose interest in the world.  It doesn't feel like a living, breathing place but more like glorified chatrooms.  The social aspect of a MMO is one of, if not it's strongest feature and when you break up the players into little pools it's hard to care about the world as a whole. 

If pre-CU servers came around I would immediately subscribe yesterday.  Best MMO ever, but the live game sucks now.

People underestimate what a big difference capped stats and identical items make in the current system compared to the old.  Take this scenario for example--this is how you would make the highest quality weapons in the new system vs. how you would have to make them in the old system:

In the new, NGE system:  As long as you have mid to high grade resources, you can make the best crafted weapons on the server.  WooT! Congrats!  Instant gratification now-now-now gameplay ftw!!

In Pre-CU:  First you have to get the BEST resources available on the server for your particular item.  If you weren't around to harvest them yourself then you have to pay tons for them, because it's one-of-a-kind and you have no idea when or if anything that good will ever be available for harvest again.  A resource equally as good could be available next week, but most likely you'd have to wait about 6 months to a year to see anything comparable spawn for harvesting.  Remember that there are several different resources required for each item, so you can see how difficult rounding up all the high quality ones would be for your particular item.

Next you have to get enough enhancers for your item(s).  As stated above, quality krayt tissues would also be worth quite a bit, the really good ones are some of the most valuable items on the server.  (Notice balance between combat and crafters--combat characters loot very valuable items but he needs a crafter to make use of them.  Interdependece ftw.)   If you're making scout blasters, you're in luck, cause you could get about 3-4 guns from a set, but if you're looking for a high-powered T-21 rifle then chances are you will only get 1 item from that particular set of tissues.

Them when it's all said and done, you get your weapon(s), but they aren't quite finished yet.  Next, you take the weapon(s) to a player with Master Smuggling (and high quality, crafted slicing tools--interdependence between players again) and pay him to slice your weapon for you.  (Better find someone you trust, smugglers ARE space pirates after all so you'll want to find one with a good rep or he may never give your item back.)  Then you cross your fingers and PRAY that you get a damage slice.  If you're unlucky and get a speed slice, you have a decent weapon, no shame in that, but it could be lots better.  However, if you're lucky enough to get a damage slice, congrats, you have one of the best weapons on the server.  And it is ONE-OF-A-KIND.  Amazing, huh?  (You would probably at this point invest in an anti-decay kit, another one of the most expensive items on the server but well worth it since then your weapon would never decay or break from use.)

So yeah, the current crafting system is nothing compared to how incredible it used to be.

Originally posted by HalfEmpty

Sometimes I wonder if my house is still there, sealed up like some tomb..

It might be, depending on how much maintenance you had in it.  I logged back in after a couple years when they were giving out vet trials, and my 4 houses are still there along with some of my factories since I had deposited enough into them to last for years.  (However I didn't stay logged in to look at much of anything else since the character animations were still running at Benny Hill speed and making me sick to my stomach.)  If your house maintenance runs out, then some monkey--ERRRRRRR current subscriber could come along and pack your house to your datapad, but in my eyes it doesn't make a difference since the game will never be worth returning to anyways.

I feel for you as far as not being able to fight back or anything as a trader.  "Thank you womprat, may I have another?"  It sucked they made crafters so helpless.

I had master Armorsmithing and Slicing IV for a long time, it gave me a nice mix of combat abilities and crafting.  But...  since they nerfed the game none of these mix-and-match cool things are possible.  *sigh*

Originally posted by Valeran

As far as crafting goes Suvroc stated it correct.  It works pretty similar today but the interdependency is now gone.   Removal of decay to a certain extent, global vendor search added to it where as before you had to go to the shops and search yourself or word of mouth. 

Yeah, the crafting system today is only a shell of its former self. 

Experimentation doesn't matter like it used to, crafted items are no longer the best in the game as items have all gone wow loot style,  items now have capped stats so everything is the same and all crafters are the same, no need to replace anything as there is no more decay/repair, global search ruined the smaller shops and vendors, you can't produce really desirable items without using the piece of crap idiot reverse engineering system...  the crafting system now is terrible just like the combat system and the rest of NGE and its playerbase.

<Mod Edit>

This is awesome and I commend the devs for taking a stand.  I wish blizzard had the stones to permaban idiot people who name their characters this way. 

/applaud Adventurine

1:20 the guy on the horse that rides by is named Rick Roll.

Nothing really quite like it.  Some games have the housing/decorating, and combat can be found anywhere--but no other game has anything like the crafting/factories/decay/community/character skill customization/freedom that old SWG had.  Google emu tho.

Originally posted by pileopoop

November 16, 2010.

No sooner than this.

Originally posted by javac

you don't buy the downloaded software, you buy a license to play it (an "account"), duh. just like you don't buy microsoft windows, you buy a license to use it.

Darkfall continues to be sold out, mainly because as the thread says, it's awesome.

That argument makes no sense.  You can't sell out of licenses or accounts either.

When you say something is sold out, it suggests that there isn't physically enough of something to meet the demand.  Which, if you're referring to DIGITAL MEDIA makes you sound like a fool.  It's like iTunes or NetFlix saying their sold out of something, makes no sense.

It's ridiculous how people refer to the game as being constantly "sold out."  You can't "sell out" of something that's only being distributed digitally.

"Sorry, fellas, we're sold out.  We don't have any more copies of the game that you can DOWNLOAD FROM US."

lol wut?

"We are unhappy about everything in this game.  However we are too stupid to hit a cancel button."

They deserve what they get and I hope ALL new worthwhile items are TCG loot cause I like seeing dumb ppl suffer.

Originally posted by Arioc

Also it makes it hard to seed NPC loot items vs player crafted items when a NPC loot item might have a high dmg, but the player base finds that faster weapons are better.

Don't forget, one of the most important aspects of this crafting system is that NPCs did not drop equipment or upgrades for characters.  The loot that was obtained by killing NPCs were usually vanity items used for decoration or collections.  Oftentimes, the loot that was dropped would have to be taken to a crafter and "added" to the recipe during the crafting process in order to give it's bonuses to the final item.  This way, loot drops were desired by the community but they did not remove the need for highly skilled crafters.

I noticed you didn't mention that in your bulletpoints at the bottom of your post.  But it's really important to note because it created inter-dependency between combat characters and crafters, and solidified crafters as the only place to go to get equipment.

I recognized the Az'Tech name right away even though I never really knew you in game.

Sadly, the same thing happened to me that everyone is describing in this thread.

A couple weeks after launch I had played several different classes and leveled a couple of them into the low 20s.  I signed up for a 3 month subscription and was loving the game.  After leveling a bit more, I ended up backing down my subscription to 1 month because I wasn't sure if I would stick with it.  I didn't really have the same eagerness to log in and play.  Then, after getting my main character to level 32 I finally ended up canceling altogether, a few days before my free time was up.

I was in a huge guild of hardcore players, about a dozen rank 40s and countless rank 35+.  I never had any problems finding guild groups for scenarios or even public quests as long as I stuck with my guildies.  But the feel of combat really started to wear on me, and I now see that there are a lot of flaws in the combat system that should have been sorted out by now.  (Animations not syncing with what acutally happens, and I'm really bothered by the odd timing/response of the GCD, non-instant instant cast spells, and the "soft" ability queing.)

The scenarios got predictable and repetitive, the main strategy that I'd see over and over every game  is root/aoe.  Even when you see it coming a mile away I felt like it was pretty much a toss-up as to whether or not we could counter it or survive.  Keep sieges got tiring after several times where our warband would get stuck on the ramps and a small number of enemies would simply protect the keep lord's room so that we couldn't progress any further.  I don't know what could be done to fix up that aspect of keep sieges but we spent a LOT of time standing on the stairs, they can't force us out and we can't force our way up.

The final nail in the coffin for me was when I found out about how the dungeon/gear progression system and saved instancing works.  It sucks cause I really loved the game for awhile but more and more things started to get to me until I finally lost interest, at least until some of these things get addressed.

I agree life day events were pretty cool.  But that's because it was creative the way they could spin the Christmas holiday into something that fits into the SW universe and lore.

This is just an abomination, though.  Not only because of how it destroys the SW atmosphere but also the way it's advertised.  It's just so freaking amaturish.  Same way with the official forums nowadays.  Any time I get nostalgic about the game and consider looking at it again I only have to spend about 5 minutes on their forums to come back to my senses.  Talk about Romper Room.

If only the last few remaining monkeys would get a clue and cancel so they could finally put this thing in the ground where it belongs.  I can't understand how anyone could look at this garbage and not want to flush it down the toilet immediately. cause that is most definitely where it belongs.

They threw canon out the window when they made pre-teens their target audience.  I still can't believe how bad it's gotten, though.  Remember when they had to get approval from LucasArts before they could add things into the game?

This is incredibly sickening.  Seeing what this game has become.  I can't wait to play on Pre-CU servers again because of how fun it was, and advertisments like this make me roll my eyes in disgust.  How could the most in-depth and immersive MMO world ever made turn into...