Yarrr.

And not a wannabe Yarrr where the only Yarrr’ing that happens is when you put on your pirate hat in town and pretend something pirate happened. No no. Real, actual pirate-like stuff happened last night, and it was glorious.

First a little ‘not so glorious’ Yarr’ing (but still actual sea stuff, again no ‘look at me’ hat talk). The new racial abilities must be bought in your own races cities, be it a player or NPC city. Since VAMP and Co. don’t own a human city, I figured I might as well make a trip down to the human capital and pick the new stuff up, and check out the barber while I’m at it. Being up on Yssam (top left sub-continent), I could either take a long ass ride on mount, or a shorter but still long trip via raft. Since I had just looted a raft recently, the choice was somewhat obvious.

I deployed my little raft and set sail, solo, south towards human lands. This was the first time I’ve ever been the pilot of a vehicle in DarkFall, and it took me a moment to get the feel of it. Along the way I wanted to check out one remote island that had trolls on it, as I needed to kill some trolls for a quest and this seemed to be the best spot. As I got closer I saw a player in the water swimming out at me, and a quick turn of the raft left me fleeing while arrows flew to my left and right (thank god the guy was a terrible shot). When you are controlling a raft you get a zoomed-out view, but the only thing you can do is pilot the raft and spin the camera (similar to when you are resting). You can’t move, use anything, or block. If you stop piloting the raft, it slows down and sits in the water until you or anyone else grabs the wheel.

With that near-disaster avoided, the remaining 25 minute or so trip was uneventful for the most part, yet the entire time I was swinging the camera around like a mad man praying I don’t run across anyone and get my raft jacked. At one point I saw another solo-pilot raft sailing along, but we avoided each other cautiously. Other than that one raft and some sharks (they don’t attack rafts), I made it to land, rode to the capital, and got my skills. I never did get to the barber though, because the call to gather up was given in alliance chat.

The plan for the night was to capture the northern sea fortress, and we would be heading out towards it about an hour before it went ‘live’ (the new map shows when it goes vulnerable, which really makes these type of coordinated plans possible). VAMP had about 15 people, and I think Nemesis had another 20 or so. We launched a total of 6 rafts (I believe) and headed out.

The sea fortress itself is huge. I mean massive huge. And not in a silly ‘make it look big to look big’ way, but rather huge in that it takes a lot of manpower to cover all sides and entrances, yet still cramped once you are in the tunnels. It’s very impressive. In order to get up to the cannon level, you must climb two sets of ladders, the first from the water and the second, much longer ladder takes you up into one of four cannon rooms. The rooms are connected by what can only be described as McDonald’s playland tunnels (the stuff before the ball pit, remember?), with a central circular area accessible from the middle of each tunnel. The very top is only accessible with some clever use of magic, most noticeably Wall of Force. That high up however, it’s difficult to see enemies, let alone fire effectively on them. In the water around the sea fortress are magically enchanted spiked rocks, which bounce you away if you touch them. I’m not sure what effect they have if you crash a ship on them however, but I do know rafts also ‘bounce’ off. It’s all good stuff, and certainly a very unique area to fight over.

About an hour into our defense I was worried we would not see any action, as reports were coming in that a large fight was happening at the southern sea fortress. Another report came in that one raft piloted by Dominion was eaten by the Kraken and never reached us. Luckily the night would not end uneventfully, and soon enough enemies showed up to contest for the fortress.

The first enemies to arrive came in a Brigantine (small-ish warship), and this was our first test of the four fortress cannons. To put it simply, they hurt. A lot. 70-140 damage with a good rate of fire. As the Brigantine got within range, the south-western cannon started shooting and vent lit up with “Ohh ish” cheers as the kill log started spitting out names. Seems we killed a good 10 or so players with just a few shots of the cannon (the Brig has only one deck, so you can’t really hide). A sizable group of us jumped into the water and deployed rafts to try and overtake the Brig, now damaged and slowed thanks to the fortress cannon.

I was piloting one raft with four others aboard, and as we were getting closer to the Brig its cannons started shooting at us and the other rafts. With each hit the raft got slower, but we had some repair shards and were able to keep going. I took a few cannon balls shots, but again the others on the raft were able to heal me and on we went. As the Brig was turning we noticed that while we killed some players, many more remained and were starting to jump overboard towards us while others rained down magic/arrows from the deck. Oops. A quick (for a raft) 180 and the call to head back to the fortress was given (the Brig was out of cannon range at this point). They chased us for a bit, but eventually broke off and everyone regrouped back inside.

It was at this point that things started to get a little crazy, as a report came in that two enemy Brigs have been spotted to the north and were starting to fire on the fortress (it was open for capture at this point). Along with the ships attacking, we also spotted many attackers in the water looking to climb up into the fortress itself. We defended the ladders, pushing the first wave back, and eventually pushed into the water itself to clean up the remaining enemies. After some tense/fun water fights, the ocean was littered with tombstones of the dead (Aventurine should add a ‘dead at sea’ tombstone).

One of the two enemy Brigs was badly damaged from cannon fire, and not wanting a nice and expensive toy to get away, a huge push was made to rush it and try to take it over. Three rafts were deployed (I was once again piloting one) and plenty of others were swimming full speed towards the smoking ship. Within 10 seconds or so of spawning my raft, I was dead on its deck. WTF? Seems an over-eager fortress cannon gunner thought my raft was the enemy, and after two blasts I was down. Those cannons need some fine-tuning me-thinks. Luckily a clan-mate (thanks Ghost) hopped on the raft and rezzed me, and together we continued towards the Brig.

As we pulled up next to it, we could see that the deck was mostly in VAMP/NEM control, with the last few enemies either being killed or hopping overboard. Victory! Again the sea was a graveyard of tombstones, and we had people diving overboard to collect the spoils, as our enemies brought some very nice stuff to fight with. In addition to gear, they also brought a sizable amount of gun powder, the material needed to fire all cannons. It was at this point that my night went a little south.

As I was piloting a raft to collect loot with a few others, the remaining enemy fighters who had survived emerged from the water and started blasting the raft deck. Among the celebration and confusion, help was slow to arrive (some were already back at the fortress), and our little group of three was taken down in quick order. Bastards. To make it worse I believe they escaped after their little ambush.

Respawning back in our city, I listed over vent as we used the stolen Brig to capture the sea fortress and collect its reward. While I almost made it, it was overall a great night for our alliance, and I think everyone came away from the experience extremely impressed. Naval warfare has finally arrived in DarkFall, and as more clans build bigger ships, things should only get more thrilling.

(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.)