No matter how I write this post it won’t do justice to what happened last night. Last night was, without a doubt, the most fun I’ve had in an MMO in a long, long time. And not only was it a metric shit-ton of pure fun, it was also a night where everything just lined up perfectly, where game design on paper played out exactly like it was intended to in-game, where all those impossible pre-release visions you have of a game suddenly materialize in one giant wtf moment of awesome. I’m still hyped from last night, and I write this twelve hours later with a smile still on my face. So. Damn. Good.

The Zealot alliance, basically the elite allstar team of Darkfall PvP’ers, sieged Blood’s (my clan) city of Kvitstein, while Vigilante sieged our allies city of Marithain a few hours later. At the same time, DHW sieged VAMP’s hamlet of Oethrain, while Revolution sieged VAMP’s city of Seelie after that. The plan was to split people up and get solid fights at every location, and that’s exactly what happened.

As we arrived in Kvit to get ready to defend, we noticed that Zealots had only dropped one large siege stone (out of a possible three), meaning that in the hour before our city went vulnerable, all of the action would be in that spot. Going into the siege everyone knew Blood would outnumber Zealots by a heavy margin (numbers ended up being about 2v1), but that most Zealot players are, as Paragus likes to call them, raid bosses. Classic David vs Goliath, only with David bringing his brother Dan to help even the odds a bit.

Nothing gets you going like seeing 50ish people geared to the teeth for a siege. Dragon, Infernal, Sithras, Cobra Staffs, R60s; most had on their Sunday best (I did spot one guy in some chain; step your game up buddy, step your game up!). We rode down towards the siege stone to engage the enemy just as it was about to go vulnerable, with the goal being to knock down the one siege stone before the hour was up and Kvit went vulnerable. We rode along a mountain west of a giant tree you can see in this video of the siege, and as we drew near all of Zealots popped up and started nuking us. Initially a bit of panic set in as people did not know whether to charge in and engage or pull back and recover. As mages nuked from and into the tree, bouts of melee broke out at the base and around the mountain. While neither side was crushing the other, it was clear Zealots were slowly grinding us down thanks to superior group play. Whenever one of them would get low, they would pull back and get assistance from others, while our fighters were not nearly as coordinated or disciplined.

As the fighting raged, the siege stone went live, and one of the Supreme Generals of Blood, with a cannon in his bag, rode away from the fighting and to the south of the stone itself. Noticing it was undefended, he spawned the cannon and made the call in vent for the rest of us to head over and start destroying the stone. We broke away from the fighting, leaving our allies to hold up Zealots, and rode to join our SG. As we started to work on the stone, I was shocked that Zealots were not responding quicker to the threat. I credit our allies here for doing a good job in stalling the enemy, but ultimately it was a massive tactical mistake to not only leave the stone undefended originally, but to then react so slowly when it was threatened.

As two of our cannons shot cannonball after cannonball into the stone, each of us threw our battlespike as well, all in the effort to burn the stone down as quickly as we could. After five minutes or so, and with the stone at a critical 30%, Zealots arrived with a furious mounted charge that broke into our ranks. Those too slow to react were cut down immediately, while the rest were left to delay as much as possible and get as many cannon shots off as we could. After some intense fighting, most of us were down and back at the Kvit bindstone. In  this video by Cattboy from Zealots, at around the 5min mark, you can spot yours truly (in a stylish dragon helm) hacking like a madman with my Justicebringer. Moral victory for me as Cattboy is forced to (temporarily) flee. I was cut down shortly after by one of his allies.

As we regrouped in Kvit, it became very clear to us that, with the stone at 25% or so, and with over 40 minutes remaining before Kvit goes vulnerable, we should have little troubling making another push, dropping a cannon or two, and finishing the stone off. Yet even as plans were being made, much to our surprise scouts reported Zealots making a push into Kvit itself. Sure enough, a group or so of Zealots were trying to push into Kvit from the west, so while our allies engaged them, the call was made to go straight south and head back to the siege stone to finish it, as losing control of Kvit at this point was near-meaningless due to it still being invulnerable.

We arrived at the siege stone with as much surprise as the first time, as again the stone was undefended (well not exactly, Zealots had spawned a half dozen mounts around the stone, but the poor animals were shortly butchered by cannon/battlespike fire). We again began to burn the stone down, and while Zealots did eventually arrive to fight us once again, it was far too late. As the victory message flashed on my screen, I ran to a couple of tombstones (the field looks like a complete graveyard), grabbed handfuls of loot, and made my way out. Blood had won the siege (and the 200k wager) against Zealots, bringing cheers and congratulations to all on vent.

My summery of the battle is this: Blood showed up to win the siege, Zealots showed up to kill people. In the end, both sides accomplished their mission, and best of all, both sides had a blast doing it. Had it not been for our focus being drawn to the siege stone, I believe we would have faired much better in the actual Player vs Player engagements. Whether we would have won either open field battle is debatable, but without question we would have performed better. But that was simply not our goal; we intended to keep Kvit, and we did. Whether it was overconfidence, arrogance or simply a mistake, Zealots only using one siege stone, and then not properly defending it, lead to our victory. I highly doubt they will make the same mistake twice, yet at the same time we did not have to pull out all the stops to win either. If there is a round two, it will no doubt play out very differently.

Ah but our night was not over just yet, far from it in fact. With Kvit safe, it was time for us to head over to Marithain and help our allies defend their city. We ported over to a house owned by Sethdrone (SG of Blood), only to find Cattboy in his house. We had a few battle spikes left, so we broke down his door only for him to spawn a new one (might need a cooldown on that AV). More spike, door down, another spawned in its place. Eventually we were out of spikes, and with just about everyone ready, we were all set to head out. Only right as we go to leave, we see Cattboy log back into the game, and unfortunately for him he was placed outside his house. As you can see at the end of his video, it did not go well for him.

We had intel that the siege stones were placed north of the city, just outside the hamlet of Spiral Peak. As we drew close, we started getting harassed by small groups of enemies, and eventually an all-out battle broke out on the slopes of the mountain. There was not a whole lot of coordination on our part here, and while we held out for some time, eventually we were worn down and scattered. Taking the beating in stride, we re-geared and returned to Marithain just in time for the actual attack on the city, having failed to destroy their siege stones.

A large group of Blood members occupied the keep, while I took up a spot on one of the houses. Marithain being a Merdain-styled city, all of the structures were build around tall trees, making them great high ground to nuke down from. The city itself is inside of a massive crater with a lake in the middle, the city sitting on the northern side, and a small elevated island right in the middle. Two rope bridges and an automated zeppelin provide the transportation from the southern entrance, while it is also possible to drop down from the edges of the crater directly into the city.

The first fighting broke out as the enemy occupied the top of the crater and attempted to rain down some magic on us, but due to the distance this was mostly ineffective in causing any real damage. They slowly started jumping into the city, while a secondary force moved in from the southern entrance. What followed was some of the crazies urban fighting I’ve seen in Darkfall, as both friends and foes ducked in and out of houses, behind walls and rubble, and generally ran around in utter chaos hacking, slashing, and blasting each other as best they could. From my elevated spot on a house roof, I did my best to rain down magic on any enemies I saw, while also having a great view of the overall battle. This continued for so long that I eventually ran out of regs and had to drop down to scavenge some up. After looting a ready bag off a tomb to resupply, I did my best to assist with any enemies that were called out, and managed to take a few down as they crossed my path. Having the hardware to run a massive siege certainly helped here, as while others were near single digits with their FPS, I never dropped below 25, and would often hover around 40.

At one point the enemy made a hard push into the keep, and over vent it was called out that everyone should come to assist. As I made my way through the chaos to the base of the keep, I spotted a number of enemies on the second floor raining down magic and arrows on those below. They had managed to push our forces out, and were now using the keep to regroup and stat up. Attempt after attempt was made to break them, but time and time again they would push us back and maintain their position. Attrition eventually set in however, as one by one we managed to kill them off, and eventually a push was made and the keep was cleared after some brutal close-quarters fighting. Victorious, we ‘cleaned up’ the keep, banked some spoils, and turned our attention to the western side of the city, the new location of the enemies push.

The key structure in this area was the mages guild, a tall structure with a tight spiraling staircase in the middle that was occupied by numerous enemies. It became very clear to us early on that the enemy was using this as another base to launch attacks from, and so it became imperative that we clear them out to regain this valuable location so close to the city stone. As with the keep, the fighting was brutal, with every spiraled turn of the building resulting in another bloody melee. Again however attrition was the determining factor, and with the building cut off from their main force, we were eventually able to clean out those at the top.

This moment of victory was short lived however, as the enemies had spawned a couple of cannons on the central island and began bombing the now-vulnerable city stone. We tried to push our way up the rope bridges to reach the cannons, but heavy magic fire deterred us each time, and those who did make solid progress were often knocked down into the water below thanks to various forms of knockback. I was one such victim, and after splashing into the lake below, I was engaged by multiple enemies on the shoreline. I did my best, still feeling the adrenaline rush of the entire night, but with the odds against me, not to mention my computer begging for a break, I was brought down. In a fitting ending, I was not only ganked but also had my computer finally give out and freeze up Darkfall. I think it was a sign from god, or Aria telepathically sabotaging me so she got some attention. I’m leaning towards the latter.

As I would later learn, the enemies ended up winning the siege, as even though their cannon position was eventually countered, they bombed the little health the city stone had from the crater above using battlespikes. Well played by Vigilante and Co with that move, and the entire night overall.

Spent yet still hyped and extremely satisfied, I stepped away from the computer to watch the Celtics beat the Lakers in game four of the NBA finals. Not a bad way to cap off a truly epic night, and a night that represents exactly why we all love Darkfall. The peak moments that are so far much higher than any other, the events that you are likely never to forget, and the battles that forge the identities of multiple clans and intensify in-game rivalries to new levels. Welcome to Darkfall.

Chuck-o-the-day: If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, not only does Chuck Norris hear it, he probably had something to do with it.

(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.)