This looks like it might be a tiny bit of fun…
:head re-explodes)
(No expansion on NA still, plus some ForumFall’ing about bugs with archery and PvE on EU)
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Hardcore Casual 
That is the coolest mob I have seen in a MMO in a long, long time. I posted the video on Corpse Run at the same time as you Syn. Color me impressed!
How is it the coolest mob?
It does a lot of damage to ships. It has a relatively cool model. It’s really deadly.
But it has no special abilities really and it just flails its tentacles around seemingly at random and clips through everything…
I’ve seen more interesting raid bosses. Actually, almost every raid boss is more interesting. There was very little in the way of tactics that they could’ve done to win that fight. It was just firing at the thing until someone died.
Its not cool for its abilities, or because its a “raid” boss, its cool because you can be out sailing the oceans and this thing can ATTACK YOUR FUCKING BOAT.
Raid boss?
Raid?
Do you know how much ships cost in Darkfall? This is a wondering monster. It can stumble across your 50-100k ship and wreck it.
When was the last time you saw a REAL sea monster dancing, spinning, “submerging”, calling in organized waves of help, and damaging its foes with spurts of water?
This is the Kraken. It doesn’t need tactics. It just rips shit up.
How do you know it isn’t using special abilities anyway? How do you know that when it submerges it doesn’t activate an ability that makes it immune to certain types of damage? It could have all kinds of abilities that we do not know about yet and could not tell from a single video.
Darkfall is not WoW or any other MMO. Mobs do not broadcast emotes to tell you that they are using a cleave, they do not report to Deadly Boss mods so that you can avoid standing in the fire. They simply rip shit up.
Good job with the random WoW-hate. I brought up raid bosses because they are in general “interesting” encounters that are multi-phase and involve the interplay of a few game mechanics that are perhaps in-place specifically for them.
I’m going off of what could be seen. If DFO wasn’t an amateurish game in general, perhaps this mob’s abilities would manifest themselves in some visible effects. But no, it’s just a flailing mass of tentacles with a head because DFO is “hardcore”. You need to be able to identify what an enemy is doing if you are to respond with any degree of strategic thinking. This giant squid gives me nothing to go with… It’s kinda interesting that the thing killed hundreds of hours of those players’ work–but the actual encounter did not instill interest.
Ugh, fixed my user name link. It was pointing to a blog I deleted and never used. Got it fixed now to point to Corpse Run.
Damnit! Syncaine you’re really making me want to play this game and I hate games like this. :(
Another new Kraken video:
I like the way the tentacles barely animate and instead just pivot on their axis, that’s a nice touch. I really want to like this game, and all these posts by Syncaine really make me want to give it a try, but I know I’ll spend more time laughing at it than really enjoying it!
Shit, I’ve been playing games so long that this just doesn’t seem like a big deal. I really don’t know how old you are or how long you’ve been playing games, but when you grew up with text based games, poor animations don’t seem like such a deal breaker.
If they are a deal breaker for you, its too bad, cause you’re missing out on a good experience. And I’m not even really criticizing you for it, its totally aesthetic preference, I do actually feel a little bad for you though.
I’ve been playing video games since 1979. The first time was Space Invaders in a pub. I had some proto-game console that plugged into the TV and played Pong, then an Atari 2600. I played text adventures on a ZXSpectrum for years.
I can’t see how that has any effect on what I see now when I watch a video of game footage from 2009, except to allow me to contextualise it. It would be like going to the movies and being satisfied just because the picture was in color and had sound.
That said, the Kraken looks pretty good. It really needs to have some direct interaction with the ship rather than just thrashing about, and they need a better animation for the ship sinking, one that shows the Kraken dragging it under the waves.
I’m sure it all feels and looks much more convincing from inside the game than from watching a video. Game footage almost always looks worse than the game itself.
Its not so much the context, but rather that growing up gameplay > all, and I still hold that opinion. Mediocre animations aren’t going to bug me.
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I have to admit that not only looks awesome, but you can imagine how incredible it would be to be part of that experience, especially when they gather enough ships/people to down it.
Excellent, exactly what a game like Darkfall should be doing.
Fantastic stuff!
Does the Kracken drop anything, or is coming away with your ship the prize? I think I’d prefer survival as the prize.
Syncaine, what is your character name and what guild are you in?
SynCaine GodHand, VAMP.
Im impressed, sure the animations need work but to be honest its just f%£$in cool. I really want to try Darkfall but dont want to pony up the money to find out after day 2 that I’m not going to click with it that and Fallen Earth seems to eat all my gaming time :(
Very cool.
To throw in my two-cents, I was reared on those old proto game plug-in consoles and whatnot also and have been an avid gamer ever since; I’m also in the camp of not needing bleeding-edge graphics. They’re great, sure, but just icing on the cake and all that.
This Kraken idea is wonderful… I hope it’s a no-loot creature as Werit mentioned and remains a lurking, fear inducing, undefeated pain in the ass for a long time to come.
I really need to play this game, I think.
This video is freaking awesome. I wanna try Darkfall now.
That is amazing! Any other MMO and a mob like that would be cried about until it was nerfed into irrelevancy. The fact that there is loss in DF gives it emotional attachment and meaning, which is something that most MMOs lack.
Agreed, I remember alot of upset people when the big harvester golems in hellfire (WoW TBC)squashed you in two hits, I hear level 80s can solo them these days :(.
Agree about the boat loss, its probably what makes Darkfall stand out more than any other pvp game, altho the kinah loss in aion when I played it was bloody brutal ;)
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