For non-Darkfall players, scroaching is basically attending a siege as a neutral third party and picking off anyone you see, while also trying to grab as much loot as possible. It’s an evolution of the word roach (though I can’t recall why it went from roach to scroach, someone in the comments help me out)

Since I was solo, I focused more on the looting part than the fighting, and set out with some basic gear and a mount. Once I arrived at the scene of the first battle, I dismounted and crept from tree to tree, doing my best to not get noticed as I moved towards the closest gravestone. At each gravestone, I looted anything of value before ducking back into the shadows. After five graves I was close to being overloaded, and rather than push things further I rode off to bank my spoils. Round one was a massive success!

I returned to find that the battle had ended and the winning side was cleaning up the battlefield. Since I had little to lose, I took a chance and ran in, hoping people would assume I was an ally. That didn’t work, and shortly I had a small mob on me and was killed. Round two not so good.

A second city was also sieged that night, and since I still had time before our scheduled PvP practice, I again set out to see what I could loot. This city was on the coast with a lot of water surrounding it, and I was able to swim out to a little island with a good view and watched the battle unfold.

Making a judgment call on when the battle was at its peak, I swam across to the closest grave and again began the looting. I then made the mistake of killing a disconnected player (the allure of plate was too strong…), which drew the attention of a mage in the area, who started throwing fireballs at me. I ran towards the water and lost the mage, but sadly the island I swam to had a group of five waiting and I was brought down. Greed kills indeed.

Scroaching is far from an honorable act, but its part of Darkfall tradition and a good change of pace from normal PvE/PvP. Its low risk (other than time), high reward, allows you to see larger PvP battles play out, and gives you a bit of a rush as you sneak around and try to avoid any attention.

Tonight OTG has our own siege, and I’m sure random scroachers will be in attendance.

In terms of attitude I think MJ is in a good place. She knows she is playing something a bit out of her league, but rather than just slogging through it she is making the most of her time and actually going out and finding the fun. I think way too many gamers today just stand still and expect the fun to find them, and that’s just not how something like DF:UW works, so good on her for that.

But yikes is she bad. And I don’t just mean “lulz that aim” bad, but just from a basic gaming standpoint bad. When fighting ogres she continually uses exploding arrow at point blank range, hurting herself. Now yes, in most MMOs you can’t hurt yourself with your own AOE, so it’s forgivable to initially make the mistake. But not noticing you are taking damage after the 10th time? Or even picking up on the fact that the ‘hit sound’ when you land a shot is exactly that and tells you whether you connected or not (during the video she assumes she missed a few times, even though the ‘hit’ sound played). It makes me wonder if she is the exception, or a representative of the average gamer?

Learning how to play the game aside (and she will hopefully learn a lot once she joins a clan), it was also interesting to see how she viewed different situations. At one point a party member spawns a mount for her to ride, but she misses that in chat (forgivable given DF:UW chat system), and spends a few minutes wondering if she should take the mount or not, as perhaps a potential thief might dance back and forth deciding whether to steal something. It’s a funny situation, given how common mounts are and that you can, of course, always get off and give the mount to someone else.

The same goes for looting items and such. She loots a few pieces of gear off the ogres, yet does not equip them. Even the bows she receives from her party members she does not correctly equip until (accidentally) later. Small things, but again an interesting look into how others play the game. From a dev’s perspective, do you try to help someone like MJ have an easier time with the game, or do you go to the other extreme and address top 5% player concerns about class balance and UI micro-tweaking? In many ways it’s an impossible decision.

Between the actions in the video and MJs commentary on them, I think the biggest thing the video shows is just how different DF:UW is compared to what many view as a ‘normal’ MMO (WoW basically). And I don’t mean different on the large scale, like full loot PvP and such, but the thousands of little things that add up. As someone who has been around such games for many years, a lot of the differences in DF:UW are normal to me, and hence I have troubling seeing how anyone could look at some of the details and come to the wrong conclusion. MJ’s video did a really good job of bringing such things to the forefront for me.

Looking forward to see the progress she makes once she has some clan support. Should be interesting, and a great example of why joining a clan in DF:UW is a basic requirement for anyone new to the game.

The nice thing about this siege was that the numbers, gear, and player skill were about as even as you are likely to find in Darkfall, resulting in multiple battles in a few locations rather than one steamrolling.

The unfortunate part was that on our end, we had a lot of crashing, which we believe is tied to using Mumble instead of TS3 or Vent. In each battle a good 20-30% of our force would randomly crash, which not only reduced our overall fighting numbers, but caused havoc for communication and organization. It did not appear that The Empire clan members were crashing nearly as often, which is good once we correct the Mumble issue, but bad for trying to win that particular siege.

For me personally, a few crashes aside, performance was excellent. I kept my game maxed out at 1900×1200 and never had my FPS dip below 60 or my ping go over 70, even though at the peak of combat we had over 100 total players fighting it out.

On to the fighting itself!

Right as I got home and was preparing to log on, Empire was raiding Kvit and blew up our bank. After they cleared out, we formed up a group of about 20, got on a boat, and sailed around for a sneak attack on their hamlet. The idea was to kill who they had before the siege went live, and hopefully hold the hamlet itself so they could not use it as a rally point.

The boat ride itself was uneventful, and we snuck up on the hamlet without incident. They had around 20 players as well, some right at the bank and others spread around the hamlet grounds. Our initial charge took down a few, but they quickly rallied to some high ground and counter-pushed. One warrior in particular, sporting Dread Plate (second-best warrior armor), was incredible disruptive and took a few of us down. After a few back and forth pushes, we lost too many and had to retreat back to our city.

After both sides gained some more members, a scout reported Empire was heading into our city. We decided to retreat up the lift we have in Kvit (the city itself is inside a mountain with three large cave entrances. A lift runs to the top of the mountain through a hole in the ceiling. There is also a path up the side of the mountain that leads to the top area). Once at the top, we waited for the enemy to follow us up, and planned to AoE the lift as it came up.

The plan initially worked, but once we started AoE’ing those on the lift, they jumped off, and we made the tactical mistake of getting on the lift ourselves and taking it back down into the city. The enemy was able to AoE us as the lift reached the bottom, and our general disorganization lead to a rather quick defeat (I crashed right as the lift hit the ground, so missed the fighting, and once back inside had to sneak my way out of the city). Though we did take down a few, overall we got wiped and they were able to loot most of our graves and ride back out of our city.

The final major battle occurred again at our city. Empire again made a push, but this time we were more organized and held them at the southern cave entrance. The choke point where a city gate can be built (we have not built the walls yet) was AoE’ed heavily by both sides, and the first push from the Empire was turned back as they lost half a dozen fighters, with the rest falling back outside to regroup.

However the second pushed got them through the choke point, and while we held for a while further inside, ultimately we again were overwhelmed and defeated.

It was only after this battle that the siege officially went live with our siege stones becoming vulnerable. At this point however moral was pretty low, people were low on gear bags, and we never reformed to defend the stones. Empire took them down quickly, and the siege ended with them retaining their hamlet.

Crashing aside, it was a very fun night, and while initially OTG was a bit down, identifying the Mumble-based crashing and getting on TS3/Vent will mean next time we don’t have to deal with the technical issues getting in the way.

First, it’s not surprising. Scott Hartsman leaving Trion was basically the “Rift is going F2P” announcement.

Second, not surprising given what Rift is. It’s an above-average themepark MMO. Being a 3.0 themepark still does not fix the core problem (being a themepark), and so F2P happens.

Third, F2P won’t save Rift, like it hasn’t saved any other MMO going F2P. Trion will likely release some nice-sounding numbers in 2-3 months, telling us that players/sales/whatever are up 500% and F2P is a massive success. Then they won’t tell us anything for a few months and eventually layoffs will happen. It’s the Turbine story with DDO/LotRO all over again. Again, F2P does not fix the core problems of your game (being a themepark), and ultimately just adds issues to it (the shop and how to get people to buy).

WoW will likely be the last themepark to go F2P, and that will happen soon (2014 remember). The issue isn’t that F2P is great for players and devs (it’s not), the issue is that themeparks are all more of less the same, so when one is just above-average, unless it really clicks with you (and continues to click for months), you might as well go with the F2P one over the $15 one (not how I would do it, but I think that’s how many look at it). Or hell, drop $50 and mess around with GW2 for a few weeks and return whenever content gets added.

The sub model works for something like EVE because if you enjoy what EVE does, you either play EVE or nothing. There is no EVE clone (because making EVE is hard, cloning WoW is easy), and EVE is not designed to be fun for a few weeks. It’s a hobby. Same for Darkfall. The target audience is much smaller than EVE, but the fact remains that if you like what DF does, it’s that or (maybe) Mortal Online, and MO is a mess. Why does Camelot Unchained have a chance as a subscription game? Because if it does what it aims to do even reasonably well, the options will be CU or nothing.

I also think long-term F2P is either going to evolve or eat itself alive. Selling fluff junk is not sustainable, players will eventually catch on to the lottery schemes, and the NA/EU market is not nearly as tolerant of P2W as Asia is. As themeparks race to the bottom, the quality will continue to dip, the shop scams will get worst, and eventually most are going to wake up and realize that playing a graphically better version of Farmville is not worth the time, aggravation, or cost.

Themeparks need to evolve or they will go the way of Farmville.

Edit: Also see this TAGN post about F2P, as I agree with it 100%.

There are the obvious benefits of owning a city, such as being able to bind at the stone, receiving the system messages when anyone comes in/out, and the minor regen buff the city provides to its owners. Cities also have resource nodes (mines, farms, etc) that can be built, but OTG has yet to build ours so I can’t really comment on that.

The above are nice, but certainly not worth the large amount of resources needed to build up a city. But because DF:UW is a sandbox, the hard-coded benefits are only a small part of the value.

Since moving in, we have put up the keep and some houses to increase the maximum number of binds allowed, and currently we are at 71. This has allowed many (but still not all) of our members to bind from the same spot, making grouping and responding to attacks much easier.

For a more casual clan that has a wide range of PvP-skilled players, having numbers close by means we don’t get rolled whenever someone comes along. It also means we can farm high-value spots like Ogre Bullies or Arctic Bears with confidence, and have the numbers to chase someone off the spawn should we need to. It also allows for quicker grouping, so those with less time don’t spend most of it riding to get to a group. And since we are all concentrated, groups are always up and something is always happening.

Another benefit is learning the local area. By knowing where all of the local spawns are, as well as the major geographic features, we are better able to quickly respond to a call for help, and when fighting know the terrain and how best to use it. For instance, we know where the land gets relatively flat and clear of obstacles, so we know when to keep chasing someone on a mount and when it’s best to jump off and try to bow them down. We know the location of iron nodes for quick gathering, and where the best hiding spots are for escaping a chase.

Owning and building up a city also motivates us to take group mining trips, where a bunch of us will head and out clean out iron nodes for the clan. We do this geared up for PvP, and often find it (or it finds us). Seeing the city gain buildings and (soon) added functionality gives everyone a goal to work towards, and creates game and clan ‘buy in’.

Finally, because other players know OTG lives out of Kvit, we in essence have created a bit of a PvP hotspot. This is greatly beneficial for a number of reasons. First, DF:UW is a PvP MMO, and having PvP come to us saves us the trouble of having to finding it (though we do plenty of that as well). Near-constant PvP also means our members are getting experience and becoming better players, rather than sitting in a secluded corner getting fat and lazy off nothing but PvE (something that happened in DF1 to many clans). And thanks to the factors above, OTG has been holding its own in most fights, meaning not only do we have PvP delivered to our front door, but nice loot as well.

Owning and actively living out of Kvit has been a major boon for OTG, and we are excited to continue building up the city and carving out a place for ourselves in Agon.

Of course now the real question becomes; when will EVE surpass WoW in subscribers? 8.6m to 500k might seem like a big gap, but when you are admitting to dropping 1m in a few months, while EVE’s growth is accelerating, it’s really only a matter of time.

Unfortunately I don’t think we are going to get a real answer, because at some point (‘soon’) WoW is going to follow the dying MMO model and go F2P for that last one-time cash grab. I don’t think that will happen in 2013, but 2014? Yea, put me down for 2014 being the year WoW goes full F2P.

How’s catering the casuals working out for ya?

Right after the event we got out three boats and set sail for Niff (top right island), passing by Ruby (bottom right). At some point I got knocked off a boat and had to swim the rest of the way (woops), but while sailing the group encountered three players on another ship (the one with the cannon!) and took it over. We seem to have the pirate thing down.

Our time on Niff was brief but extremely entertaining. The main ‘issue’ was the overabundance of PvP. Anytime a group went out to PvE, PvP would find them, and even though many times we ended up on the winning side, it still delayed gaining prowess and completing feats. Furthermore, the area was so hot that our less developed characters had a tough time getting anything done, and they really wanted (and needed) to work on prowess to become ‘viable’.

We did have some great fights on Niff though, from a 20v15ish battle that went back and forth for close to an hour, to some great small-scale (3v3 and such) fights over mob camps. We certainly have plans to return and do some roaming when more of us are ready.

The rapid move to Niff caused an issue for some of our more casual member, who either got left on Cairn or just had a tough time getting anything done on Niff. With that brought to light, we have decided to concentrate the clan in the city of Kvit, which comically enough we claimed by accident on the second day of the game being live. We are currently building up Kvit, and already have expanded the number of bind spots available, though we still need more (zerg yo). More on the city and its impact on the clan in a different post, but I’ll just say it’s been great.

With most of our membership relocated to either the city itself or the nearby safezone NPC city, we regularity have multiple groups of 3-5 working different mob spawns or simply patrolling the area for PvP. One spawn in particular, Ogre Bullies just to the south of our city, sees a ton of traffic, and we have become increasingly good at fending it off without losing a lot of farming efficiency.

Personally I’ve been involved in a number of battles over an ice elemental spawn, and just in that short amount of time I think my PvP skills have greatly improved (up from terrible to pretty bad). Prowess-wise I’m at 24k, and I feel like I’m basically there in terms of character power. Gear-wise I’ve started using banded and r30 weapons more regularly. I also finally stopped being lazy and rebound a bunch of functionality to my mouse, because I might as well use those 11 buttons if I have em (g700 ftw).

When DF1 launched I had a blast in part because the game felt so new and fresh compared to everything else in 2009. This time around, that “new game smell” is less a factor, yet I’m having more fun than I’ve had in years because most of the warts that DF1 had have been removed, and I’m playing the kind of MMO I love the way I want to play it (mix of PvE and PvP, heavy on clan-based interaction) without the game punishing me for doing so. I’m progressing at a pace I’m very happy with, I don’t feel like others are miles ahead, and I don’t see the inevitable “game over” screen or 180 gameplay turn on the horizon.

Given the above, I don’t really understand what Azuriel is doing with his 3-part Darkfall series. Yes, AV sent him a free copy, but why waste so much of your time just to prove that ‘doing it wrong’ is a good way not to enjoy a game? I mean, I’m not going to grab Axis and Allies, slot two hours for it, and then slam the product as inferior to Candyland because in my two hours I didn’t have fun and ‘lulz the UI’.

Wasting time aside, the series was in part the inspiration for yesterday’s post, because while it’s pretty clear Azuriel went in knowing he was doing it wrong, I’d bet many themeparkers have a very similar approach and a “must have fun NOW” mindset. I don’t know if it’s just an age/generation thing, or just a normal difference in human nature put on display thanks to things like Twitter, but in no way can I relate to that kind of approach to things.

Investing in something to build towards a ‘payout’ later is just something I’ve always done. I spent hours painting Warhammer miniatures because at the end, I’d have a great looking army to play with. Not once did I consider painting yet another foot soldier ‘a grind’, nor did I expect every miniature to look as special or unique as a leader/hero unit.

I approach MMOs the same way. It’s why I invest in the social fabric by joining or running a guild, reading the forums, and trying to keep up with that is happening in-game. It’s why short-term MMOs like GW2 feel to pointless to me; I’m not looking to have 3 weeks of instant fun, I’m looking to add a solid block to 15 years of MMO gaming.

It’s why seeing clans like Lords of Death, Sinister, Blood, SUN, LotD, OTG, and others is special; people and clans have gaming history with those names and the people behind them, sometimes YEARS worth of history spanning multiple titles. Those rivalries take time to build, but that time is well invested and the payout is worth it when clashes happen.

It’s why I deride the notion of the “jump in, jump out” MMO, or those that dabble in multiple titles at all times. While maybe that works on an individual level for some, an MMO should be far more than just your individual story or instance, and if you are constantly leaving you never become a piece of something greater.

In a way, it’s a bonus that a game like DF does not attempt to cater to that approach, because it weeds all those players out quickly and you refine down to your ‘core’ faster. DF:UW also has the carryover benefit of DF1, so much of the established history transferred over, and the distilled core was in place day one.

This is not to say new players can’t become part of such a world. They very much can, and do all the time. But in order to do so, you have to invest. And the investment does not have to be all-encompassing. You don’t need to be the leader of thousands to ‘get it’. But you also can’t just log in, look around, and expect things to happen. Joining a clan is one step, of course, as is being social-enough in that clan to learn from others and get up to speed. Being an active member is another; like the game itself, most clans won’t bring the fun to you, you have to interact and find it with others.

If any of the above sounds like a chore or pain to you, maybe this genre is not the right one for you. It is, after all, pretty niche.

Themepark MMOs on average are for dumb and/or lazy MMO gamers (compared to sandbox players). That’s insulting, yes, but it’s also true. There is a reason WoW got ‘dumbed down’. There is a reason core themepark design revolves around holding the players hand and guiding them, and much of the ‘innovation’ since 2004 has been in that area (quests on your map, auto-grouping, instant travel, instant mail, from anywhere auction house, dungeon finder, etc). “You can’t fail” and “everyone is a winner” design is there for a reason. Themepark players need to be treated like infants, and the minute you take away a toy, they throw a tantrum, and tantrums are bad for business.

“Bite sizes” content exists because that’s the attention span of your customer. It’s also the maximum amount of life planning they can do. Figuring out how to free up a two hour chunk of time is too hard for that audience, and even if they could do it, you would lose them over those two hours unless you rewarded them every 15 minutes or so. Long-term investing is not a concept that audience is familiar with, which is why guild structures are so loose, goals are so short, and the ‘ability’ to jump in and out of any one game is viewed as a positive.

It’s also why F2P themepark MMOs are semi-successful. F2P is a math tax business model, and much like slots or the lottery, the target audience is anyone not smart enough to do the math. By tricking the average themeparker into believing they are paying less, while they pay more, the company gets more money from them without the dummies noticing. Plus designing store ‘content’ is trivially easy compared to, you know, real MMO content. Who needs complex, long-term sustainable systems when you can just release another sparkle pony or neon baseball cap? (Let alone selling someone the ability to not play).

So a PvE sandbox wouldn’t really work. The players who would ‘get it’ already play in their sandbox of choice, and while they might not love PvP or actively seek it out, they accept it and continue to play the way they want (because, you know, sandbox). Meanwhile, the real PvE fans who THINK they want a PvE sandbox simply wouldn’t be able to play it. They would hit the first 15 minute stretch without a reward and get distracted by a shiny. They would see that in order to reach a goal they need longer than 30 minutes and declare the goal impossible. They would expect to jump in/out of the game and destroy the needed social structure of a sandbox, assuming of course they even took the first step of actually getting INTO the social structure to begin with.

So the angst over something like CU getting funded is a bit funny to me. PvP sandboxes continue to see funding and success because it’s proven they work when done right. McMMO themeparks work when done right as well. But a deep, solid PvE MMO? I’m not sure that audience actually exists outside of the tiny niche that is currently playing AtiTD, and so far, the industry agrees with me.