Not all State of the Game posts are created equal.
Even in the cesspool that is ForumFall (and I mean that in a good way, its entertaining stuff) this updates was well received, and for good reason. The way to get people to open world PvP is to get them out in the open world (brilliant, I know), plus if they are fighting mobs they are likely doing it with at least SOME gear + mob drops, which makes them better PvP targets. A fix for the current bloodwall issue without a single direct change to PvP, nicely done Aventurine (and Mythic, take note). The even bigger impact will be with magic, as it becomes horribly cost ineffective to skill magic on other players in your city, but heading out into PvE with a boatload of reagents on you also increases your risk. Again, brilliant work by Aventurine. And I think we can all see where this is going; a hard skill cap to be added later. By making getting your skills up easier (or at least faster if you take some risk), the introduction of a cap system won’t be as shocking to the current player base. If it only takes you a month to max out a magic school, a cap system that forces you to retroactively pick between magic and archery won’t seem nearly as harsh.
Given that DarkFall is just now finally seeing some advertising, a massive skill gain increase followed by a cap system in November or December makes a lot of sense, both to help out new players entering the game and also to make these changes easier to deal with as veterans. Plus by that point the next expansion will have been testing.
Ah yes, the expansion. Funny how one set of expansion notes, for something that’s at least a full year away with a price tag of $40, can look so ‘meh’ when compared to something coming in a month, for free, from a small dev catering to a tiny niche community. Undead Paladins take a long time to add I guess.
The details are of course still limited, but considering that the 800 pound gorilla does not even have ship combat, or housing, or a working PvP system, the fact that the little guy is ADDING to all those systems is rather entertaining/amazing. And if the next expansion is anything like the first, it’s going to be a huge hit. Local banking + caravans + village system + player vendors? F my inner crafting carebear self sideways. Plus wandering mobs, something almost all MMOs talk about or want to add, but never do? I need to slow down, I’m starting to sound like some pre-release fanboy swearing THIS game is finally baby Jesus, but yea, kind of excited here.
It might be painful to go a month+ without a single word out of Aventurine (other than “hey, we fixed that 2 billion damge thing, sorta”), but at least when they do speak, it’s not just hot air and ‘soon’ promises.
Hardcore Casual 
I don’t know, but reading yours and the linked post just makes me wonder why it’s called an expansion and not Darkfall 2, seriously :P.
Yes I’m loving these patch notes…this hints at awesome.
I really liked not just “local banking” but that they specifically said “the first step of local banking”. I’m going to take that to mean that they are starting to get it about local banking :D
Caravans? Not sure what this will mean but it sounds like pvp murder trains :D
I think adding to the random drops and the moving spawns should make the landscape even more interesting.
The patches to this game always seem on track and in the right direction. Good stuff.
Hey look, I’m Woody. Howdy howdy howdy.
Oh. So AV is finally curbing exploits by not modifying the systems to remove the exploit, but by making a different exploitable feature more appealing?
I’m sure there will be plenty of new mob exploits found to take advantage of the extra skilling speed. AV just upped the ante on the macroing game.
I’m also concerned about DF’s endgame. As you progress in the game, it seems like the rewards dwindle. Once you have been skill-capped, one big motivation for going out and doing stuff in the game is removed. How long will it take to farm up all the gold that you could ever need and then PvP until you’re bored of circle strafing and pressing 3 keys and clicking the mouse twice to cast a spell or shoot an arrow (that’s a slight exaggeration)?
And I think it’s funny that your using DF’s advances to take pot shots at WoW. DF doesn’t have anywhere near the inertia that WoW has–they can basically do whatever they want because their niche is so well-established, even if it is small. No one is surprised that DF is adding more open PvP features and WoW is adding more PvE features. It’s not a sign of WoW sucking, it’s a sign of DF being a game that is far more suited to your needs.
Wait, so housing and player vendors are PvP features now? And blood walls are exploits? (I’ll give you that DF has its fair share of underhanded play, but it’s an MMO, on that more people play on the forums than in-game it seems. Remember the gold buying market, what game is tops for that? What game has it’s top raid bosses killed by exploits and data mining?)
As for rewards dwindling, are we talking about WoW or DF, remind me? Because I’m fairly sure that in DF, the higher your cash goes, the more you can afford to lose when you die. So if I’m Joe Newbie, losing chain sucks. If I’m Bob Endgame, losing dragon armor sucks as much as Joe losing chain. See how that works? How many mats does it take to craft that dragon armor vs that chain? Why look, an economy. Do Alliances in EVE toss Titans around like candy once they hit 75m SP. Do they stop mining or caring about controlling mining territory? Because I’m fairly sure I stopped raiding once I had my epic, but at least back then content was coming faster than once every 6 months or two years.
And if we are talking about diminishing returns in gameplay, what gets boring faster; playing Simon Says with the exact same pattern every time, or testing your skills against another human that adapts and evolves as you do? You mentioned circle strafing, how’s that working out in a magic battle?
Milton Bradley sold millions of Simon game consoles in the 1980s. Don’t underestimate the appeal of simplicity. :D
Simon’s a computer, Simon has a brain, you either do what Simon says or else go down the drain.
….sorry couldn’t resist…
80’s classic.
@evizaer
WoW gameplay is fundamentally keyboard turning+ 12343=purples then repeat. There is no way around the terrible gameplay. Blizzard can’t patch their way out of it… ever.
Better bind your /dance emote onto a hotkey,
added to endgame boss in WoW in 3…2…1…
Awesome, another objective post by the Darkfall apologist.
@Matt
What if… what if Darkfall is a really great game and… wait for it… it’s just not for you…?
Could it be?
@Adam
What if… what if WoW is a really great game and… wait for it… it’s just not for you…?
Could it be?
Yes, that last post was totally objective. With the exception of WAR, I don’t PVP at all in MMOs. Obviously this makes Darkfall a fairly bad fit for me. Does that mean I take every opportunity to mouth it off? nope.
as a side, Sync, you’re fairly right about undead paladins – you’d need to make sure every bit of paladin-specific armor fitted to the undead model, then put trainer NPCs in every city, and then work out a few class quests, with good rewards – a bit of work, across several teams. oh, then QA the whole thing.
And then -almost forgot- change 80-90% of the 1-60 levelling process, including zones & quests.
First off, don’t hold your breath on that 80-90% thing, it would be rather bad for your health.
Second, I don’t want to get too technical, but I don’t think you realize how easy it is to add existing armor/weapon textures to a different race. Or how easy it is to create a few new quests, let alone add NPC trainers. But that’s really not the point of the Undead Pali joke; read the lore behind the Pali class from back in 2004, now read the lore for the Undead. Now mix the two.
@Jemre
No WoW (that I played from release until just before WAR released and most likely at a higher level than you) is not the game for me.
But guess what… I’m not over trolling in the WoW thread am I?
Come to the Darkfall (a fundamentally different game that provides gameplay UNAVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE) thread and shoot off about how awesome WoW is and bad Darkfall is? lol.
WoW is bad. People that play WoW are bad.
@Adam
rofl, check my post – I didn’t say Darkfall was bad at all, and nor did I call WoW awesome – I merely stated that I preferred PvE, so obviously WoW would be a better fit.
second: lol @ insulting the level I play WoW at – shots in the dark are awesome, huh?
I’m only posting because while I like reading Syncaine’s blog, the endless sarcasm and crap jokes about the 800-pound gorilla and how it works, comparing it to a totally different game, is a little old now – can we get something new, please?
@Jemre
“800-pound gorilla…can we get something new, please?” Good idea.
http://www.darkfallonline.com where you can begin to learn to not be bad.
Btw… a game that forces you to aim and react to mobs is a game that you don’t nod out in the middle of a pull (WoW is bad… did I mention that?).
PVE is much more fun in Darkfall than WoW, if by PVE you don’t mean the meaningless quest text you ignore anyway…
Following Jemre’s idea I think we could all benefit of something new around here. I propose:
1) More “Please, kiss my ass.” posts.
2) More “Why don’t you like me?” posts.
3) More “Those mean commenters hurt my feelings!” posts.
3) More “I do this only for your benefit, dear readers.” posts.
Hmmm, do I miss something? Ah, yes…
4) More “Even Blizzard’s bugs are better than anyone else’s!” posts
and finally:
4) More “I’m going to stop blogging for a while to see if you really, really like me!” posts.
Actually I’m just going to put up a ton of ads on this blog, and the content will basically be glowing pieces about whatever big MMO is coming out next. Once released I’ll quickly move on to the next upcoming MMO. Easy money, at the cost of only a piece of my soul.
LOL!
Indeed there are lot of ideas out there for you to improve your blog, blizzard style. :)
You mention that WoW does not have “ship combat” nor a “working PVP system.” I think your time away from the game is showing.
Certainly some top arena players could argue that there is a working PVP system. Even a casual player farming honor in battle grounds is participating in a “working PVP system.” There is a system, and it works. Just because you prefer a different system does not make this one non-functional.
No “Ship combat” is just splitting hairs if you don’t consider the vehicle based PVP and PVE that is in the game currently. True there is no sea-based ship to ship combat. I am not sure how you can ignore this as I swear I remember you commenting on World of Mariocartcraft some time ago…
I would hardly call your normal hotbar being replaced by a new one and your character model changing to a dragon/tank/whatever as ‘vehicle combat’, at least not in the way I view it, and certainly nothing like the actual vehicle (ship or warhulk) combat in DF.
As for the PvP system ‘working’, when 99% of the population is PvPing to grind out epics, and losing gets you just as far (or further if you lose fast) as winning, sorry but that to me is not a ‘working’ PvP system. As for those top arena teams, it’s hard to know exactly how good you really are when you are facing sub-par competition, and the worlds best are in a different league playing under different rules. I’m sure someone out there is the kickball champion of the world, but somehow his home run total might not stack up against someone leading the majors.
http://www.kickball.com/node/225027
If you hurry your team could be the next kickball world champion!
My sister plays in the World Kickball League (or something like that), which is why I brought it up. I mean it’s basically a bad excuse for grown-ups to get together and drink weekly, but I still found the idea hilarious.
I always thought if you are tired of wow-bashing from syncaine, you should go play darkfall to gank him mercilessly. I am tempted to create an account with a character named WoWTourist for that express purpose.