Um… yea.
:head explodes:
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Hardcore Casual 
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Awesome. Bigger and better than I even expected…
Inb4 flabbergasted trolls…
I know next to nothing about Darkfall but I gotta admit that sounds like a very impressive Free expansion.
I don’t know about the Sea Fortresses… but the Trade Routes seem like a very interesting idea. Pretty amazing notes though, looking forward to reading how it goes.
Release the Kracken!
Very nice.
Aw shucks, now I am definitely going to have to pack up my tourist bags and buy a ticket to DF. Oh well, if I do I’ll get through your community publisher account.
Sorry, not enough to get me to play. But it is an impressive list of stuff, hope you enjoy it!
Holy crap.
That’s a heck of a patch/expansion/update/whatever.
Why do monsters and wildlife need tombstones?
If Aventurine ever decide to make a PVE game, I’d be very keen to try it because it looks as though they understand what a Virtual World is, but hardcore PvE with near-compulsory clan/guild membership to function is too much of a hurdle for me (that and not having 36 hours in my day).
Tombstones are how you loot anything once something dies. You also skin a tombstone. The interesting thing about the wildlife tombstone (from the picture) is that it might blend into the environment a bit more, while the dragon tombstone is a bit ol’ “Look at me” thing.
Er hardcore PvP is what I meant there, obviously…
Sea villages look really cool.
There’s some “WTF” stuff in there:
Last hitting to conquer the sea fortresses. That’ll turn into a clusterf.
“After the 22 hour countdown period, a 3 hour siege period starts. The attackers are vulnerable the entire time. The defenders go vulnerable when less than 50% of their city walls remain standing, and at least one
hour of the siege period has passed.”
I don’t understand what this is trying to say. You have to destroy 50% of their city walls for their stone to be vulnerable? That can’t be right. I’m hoping it means that you have to destroy walls if you want to take the stone BEFORE the 22 hour timer is up.
Siege stones look like they are going to add a lot to teh game. They mitigate the spawning-right-here advantage for defenders. It may also lead to some interesting supply situations with attackers bringing more equips than they need with them so when they respawn at the siege stone they can re-equip easily. Siege stones have the effect of forcing the attacker to establish a “camp” outside of the city that will be where the defenders can strike to end the siege.
The transfer of all stuff in your house bank on takeover is a big deal. Really raises the stakes in capturing cities.
Player vendors: Awesome.
Darkfall has taken a huge leap forward. I’m excited to see how this patch is received and if AV accomplished their goals or just opened up a significant heap of new exploits. If the game actually becomes more balanced, I will very likely try it out again.
Sea fortress tactics will definitely be interesting. Keep in mind that everyone can see the timer from the world map on the fortress, and that you can only spawn a ship at a harbor. A clan/alliance should be able to hold down the fortress area before they begin attacking it, similar to how villages work now. No one bangs on the stone with enemies around, and while a ninja-tab is technically possible, it would be rather hard to sneak in a ship. We will see though how it all plays out. My guess is every 3 days we will see some nice ship vs ship battles though.
50% of the walls have to be destroyed to open the stone for damage in the actual attack phase of the siege. The 22 hour window is a siege prep window, so you can’t ninja-siege at 4am and take the stone down right before the server goes down, or drop a siege the moment the server is up.
Houses are different than cities. The thing about items transferring to the new owner of a house is different than sieging a city/hamlet. You can only lose a player house if you don’t pay the taxes on it.
I don’t play DF, but what impresses me about the notes is how many times “You must be a member of a clan” appears. It’s refreshing to see a company understanding and catering to it’s core (and some would say ‘niche’) audience instead of trying to pursue a more mainstream one.
DF is the unsung hero of the MMO world. Other companies must fear it, for if DF got big enough, the other companies would be forced to up there game and put out quality free content as well! No nilla Xpacs here, and they are free!