This is from the official homepage. Fills up most of your questions.
What kind of advanced features does Darkfall have?
Darkfall has most of the features one would associate with fantasy based MMORPGs, but also contains elements found in real-time strategy and action games. In Darkfall it?s the players and their actions that shape the world. We provide you with the platform and the tools to engage in grand activities such as kingdom building, politics, strategy, diplomacy, combat, warfare, conquest, and racial wars. We also offer you the freedom and the option to not get involved in any of that if you don?t want to, and to follow a path of your own.
How will trading work?
We have developed a pretty sophisticated trading system that brings buyers and sellers together easily, and it will work in, but also out of the game. There will be more on this at a later date.
Can I have pets or NPC hirelings in Darkfall?
You can have pets and NPC hirelings in Darkfall, ranging from tamed animals and monsters, to summoned skeletons, charmed animals and monsters, hired NPC merchants, hired NPC guards, etc.
What can my NPC hirelings do?
NPC hirelings can follow you around and fight with you, they can carry your loot, they can perform skills and spells to aid you, etc. NPC hirelings can do pretty much everything that player friends can do. In addition, NPC hirelings can be given advanced orders such as patrolling your city, looking for enemies, criminals, and thieves. They can be a vendor in your shop that you have set up, they can mine for minerals in a mine, they can go out into the forest and chop wood for you, or stand on the banks of a river fishing for you all day.
How do I tell my NPC hirelings what to do?
You can either give an NPC hireling a direct one-time order, such as "heal me", or you can set up a more permanent chain of orders, through an advanced NPC hireling interface in Darkfall. This advanced interface can tell the NPC hireling to heal you every time your health goes below say 10% of your max health. Obviously the NPC hireling must have the matching skills and spells to perform these actions.
NPC hirelings have skills and spells like players do. The more skills and/or spells an NPC hireling has, and the better skill and/or spell levels he has, the more gold he will require for his services.
What about character classes? How does character development work in Darkfall?
The rule is that there are no traditional character classes, or templates. We want to give the players total control of what and how they want to play. Customize your own character to suit your playing style best, without traditional templates to limit you. If you want to be an axe wielding Dwarven fighter you simply pick up the Axe skill, Axe Mastery, Parry, Dodge, Cleave and other linked skills. If you later decide that some magic would be nice as support, you pick up a few magic skills and spells as well. The same goes for trade skills. Want to be able to create weapons? Pick up Smithing and Weapon Crafting. Want to make clothing or work as a tailor for a while? Pick up Tailoring. No need to re-roll your character.
There is no way to "gimp" your character by picking the "wrong" skills or spells.
Get what you want, play as you want.
That being said - There is an option available to follow a class system: the Prestige classes described below.
What are the Prestige classes?
Prestige classes are special classes, like Paladin, Assassin, Gladiator, Enchanter etc. and it?s an optional path that you may choose for your character to follow. Picking a prestige class will in most cases give you a few special skills, a few special spells, and you will have a certain status. There are limitations, tradeoffs and restrictions playing a prestige class character. Druids for example may never use metal armor after they are initiated, and Paladins have to give half of their earnings to their church.
Prestige classes may be interesting to some players, and some classes may give you an extra reason to role-play, or maybe give you an edge in combat or crafting. There will be many interesting prestige classes for you to try out.
Picking a prestige class is not final - you can change class later, with some minor penalties. The easy route would have been to make picking a prestige class final, but we want to keep Darkfall as open ended as possible.
Can players make magical items?
Darkfall features an extremely sophisticated item creator, which will enable players to create powerful items, like weapons, jewelry, armor, wands, potions, food and more.
We have invested a lot of time and design resources into creating the ultimate player based economy. Players who enjoy trading and crafting will truly enjoy Darkfall’s virtually limitless item creator system, something never before seen in a MMORPG.
Will items decay with use?
Yes they will.
Is it possible to repair items?
It is possible, with the proper skills and tools, up to a point. Eventually an item will be destroyed after being repaired several times.
What types of items can I make?
You will be able to make almost every item found in the world like weapons, tools, armor, clothing, food, containers, furniture, jewelry etc.
Racial wars?
Yes. Darkfall has six different main character races: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Mahirim, Orks and Alfar. Each race has different political standings with the other races. The Elves are at peace with Dwarves and Humans, but are wary of Mahirim, and are at war with the Orks. Everyone hates the Alfar, and the Alfar hate everyone. In effect this means that Elven players may travel to Dwarven and Human cities without having any problems with the city guards, and may buy and sell in stores. If an Elven player traveled to an Orkish city, he would be killed on sight, both by city guards and other players. In Alfar cities, any other race is attacked.
Can I be successful at combat without learning magic?
It’s possible, but it won’t be easy. We are balancing magic and melee/archery skills so that you can compete even if you choose not to learn magic. Darkfall is a magical world though, so if you are totally against picking up any magic skills or spells, you may have to rely on magical items, potions or scrolls to aid you in combat.
What’s the best path to follow to be successful in combat?
The best individual fighters in Darkfall will most likely be the characters that have a good combination of skills. In Clan warfare, clans with a good mix of various specialties should fare the best.
I enjoy playing support characters. Will my contribution make a difference in combat?
Your contribution could be very valuable. Logistics are very important in Clan warfare. The tradesmen, farmers, bakers, miners and other support characters stocking up supplies of spell reagents, gold, weapons, potions, armor, and whatever else is needed, are crucial to the war effort. Fighting ability alone will not be able to sustain a successful campaign for long. A clan will need to balance their activities, or cooperate with other clans in order to be successful.
Can I make a name for myself as a solo fighter?
Yes you could, but it won’t be easy. Without a support network you will have serious disadvantages and there’s a limit to what you can accomplish fighting against all odds. However, if you’re intelligent, persistent and skillful you could be very successful playing the “lone wolf” character.
Can you fight in cities?
Yes you can fight wherever you want. There are no safe zones.
Aren’t you worried that out of control random player killers will ruin the game?
No. Being a random player killer of evil alignment is definitely possible, but also an extremely hard career. You will have enemies everywhere, and will have a hard time finding a safe city to trade in. You have the freedom to play such a character, but there’s also accountability for the choices you make.
How does alignment come into play when a good clan is at war with another good clan?
Once clans have declared war on each other, no alignment adjustments will occur due to your actions towards members of the clan you are at war with.
Can you walk through other players in Darkfall?
No, so blocking entrances will be a viable combat tactic. It is possible to push players and monsters out of the way though, so this tactic can be countered
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