It’s a good thing Greeks don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, because it looks like the next DarkFall expansion is set for release late next week (with some caution that it might slip a few days, but that never happens in MMO land thankfully). If they manage to get it out by Friday that should give everyone a solid weekend to play around and see all the stuff they have added.
It also means I need to focus on Dragon Age and get through the main storyline. My current goal with that is just to finish it, and save as much of the side stuff as possible for later, perhaps mixed in with some user-created content at that later date. I’m at 24% complete currently with 44 hours played, although I think all the little side quests and achievements factor heavily into that. My guess is I’m over 50% done with the main storyline (I’ve gotten the delish, dwarves, and mages allied, and I’m about to head to Haven).
Back to DarkFall, oddly the one major feature that has not been previewed in detail with a Spotlight post is the changes to ships and sea objectives. Either Aventurine wants to surprise everyone, or that development has been pushed back. One other change many are looking forward to is the new siege mechanic, as I think everyone would like to see a typical siege go a little faster. I think overall the most anticipated change however is the heavy nerf to magic, both with the added cooldowns and the increased magic protection from heavier armor. Hopefully the days of Harry Potter Online will soon be over (although tbh, the only time I’ve seen magic-only combat is during a siege. Small-scale stuff still sees plenty of melee and archery even today, but it will be nice to have those even more evenly represented after the patch).
This news first came via the new DarkFall twitter account. Now personally I think twitter is a colossal waste of space, but I have set up an account just to keep up with Aventurine, and my hope is that this account will be used to throw out little bits of dev info that will likely only interest the very dedicated (or insane). Getting an ‘insider’ view of MMO development is of personal interest to me, even more so for a title as unique as DarkFall with a team as unorthodox as Aventurine. Twitter still sucks though, so don’t expect to be reading up on what I just eat for breakfast, or my one witty thought of the day (you get that here).
(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)
Hardcore Casual 
Syncaine- what do you think is in the long-range plans for Darkfall?…specifically in terms of game design and where they will be focusing their efforts? Have they given any indication in this regard?
My hope is that they really beef up the PvE aspect of the game after the balancing (magic vs melee vs range) and PvP tweaking is done. More content, eventually more dungeons, bosses, loot etc. I think a perfect mmorpg, at least in terms of what i like, would be a game like Darkfall with a huge PvP focus and great PvP mechanics (to bring in the server-wide politics) but also with a ton of PvE content to go with it. The PvP stuff they’ve got for the most part, so would love for them to really beef up the PvE going forward.
Also, any remote hints of a “true” expansion” (at least in terms of adding land mass) yet?
thanks
God the last thing DF needs is more landmass, haha. But I think the overall plan is to make DarkFall a fully functional virtual world. It already has top-notch combat and a huge detailed world, and now AV just has to fill it up and expand on what they have. So far (one expansion in, one about to hit) they have delivered beyond (my) expectations.
Once they put together the official expansion patch notes (what would make it a ‘true’ expansion btw, a $40 price tag? This thing has more actual content in it than many paid expansions) you will see that PvE is actually getting a lot of attention here. Roaming wildlife, AI changes, mob re-balancing, non-PvP stuff like player vendors, caravans, and new housing stuff.
There are many places in Agon that look like they will be future dungeons, and the big center dungeon itself still has some closed doors, so my guess is at some point in the future we will see those added, and perhaps current dungeons will expand a bit (many are only 2-3 rooms/spawns). But right now I don’t think DF needs MORE PvE, it just needs it a little refined and tweaked. The thing about a sandbox is that when you change one aspect, it has a ripple effect on everything. A PvP combat change (like say making archery better than magic) also impacts PvE and the economy (more bow/less staff demand, etc).
Did they talk about caravans yet?
In Dragon Age, that percent complete is based on the percent achievements accomplished, not percent of storyline done.
I finished it in 65 hours with about 60% of achievements. My girlfriend did it in about 55 hours.
How far are you in the game currently?
Done with dwarf, elf, mage areas. Just went to the capital and got the quest to go to Haven.
Well, if you have not done Redcliff yet, I would actually suggest doing that before Haven.
After Redcliff and Haven, you have about 3 sections of the game left.
I had a conversation with someone this morning that is in the know. If all goes well I may be able to provide some insight on what’s to come. Keep your fingers crossed.
DF getting wings?
(cheap shot, sorry)
Syncaine, I feel the same way about Twitter that you do as far as personal information, but our site automatically tweets the new post titles and shortened URLs similar to the way an RSS feed works and we get a reasonable number of readers using that to keep up vs. RSS or other methods.
We use a plug in (WP>Twitter) which I don’t think you can use on a WP.com hosted site, but you can use Twitterfeed, which is a service that converts an RSS feed into tweets. The end result is substantially the same, if a bit delayed.
@syncaine- I know they are doing a lot of stuff to PvE in the coming “mini-expansion” which is great. I think adding the animals, although it remains to be seen how many, will do a lot to help flesh out the world. The AI tweaks could be interesting as well although it’s hard to determine how that will affect the game until you experience it. I just…in my “perfect game” I always envisioned an equal PvP/PvE environment…something like the PvP content of Darkfall with the PvE content of Everquest to give a rough picture. I think Darkfall has come close to nailing the PvP and if they can continue to ramp up the PvE to make it as much a part of the game as PvP that would equate to an incredible gaming experience. I see no reason why they wouldn’t continue to expand on both aspects of the game though and I’m sure they will.
@ Paragus- sounds great…hopefully will hear more on coming plans soon! By the way, aren’t you the one that did the write-ups on mmorpg.com? I loved those write-ups, which I read until I stopped playing (real life got in the way and hasn’t moved on yet unfortunately). I thought I’d heard you quit playing though? May have been someone else I’m thinking of…
@willee
That’s me. I am not currently subscribed to any MMO.
I’m in the same boat ;)
Curious…you seemed to be pretty high on Darkfall at one time. Why did you quit?
Hmmm…seems to me like you could have just tweeted this and saved a lot of space.
The twitterized version – “DarkFall expansion set for release next week. Heavy nerfs to magic expected. I love DarkFall. Yay Adventurine.”
I even left you with about 28 characters to spare.
See? Twitter isn’t so bad. :P
Jason (the resident drunken idiot of Channel Massive)
I thought his twitter would be:
“Darkfall expansion set for release next week. Buy it here, I make 20%. I love Darkfall. Yay Adventurine.”
I’m looking forward to this expansion. I let my sub lapse on my NA account in August due to lack of personal time, but I always enjoyed the game. I think they may get me back, even if I don’t have huge amounts of time to play.
Noone needs to join twitter or a 3rd party site if you dont want…
Every twitter has an rss feed. Just add it to the rss feed reader of your choice.
But without joining Twitter there’s no, “Yay Aventurine.” And we can’t have that.
twitter is so 2008… ;)