Hey look Darkfall ‘raiding’. To the alt-tab 1-2-1-4 machine!
Oh and the reason the first attempt failed? They did not complete enough of those ‘new’ ‘daily’ quests the last ‘patch’ added, and the overall gearscore was too low.
Hahaha.
Edit: Original forum thread, with loot screenshot.
Hardcore Casual 
Hard to really evaluate watching a video without the context of having played the game.
As an outside though it looked like 15 minutes of “lead slow moving target with ranged shots; don’t get hit by obvious projectile; vortexes in the ocean are bad.” Joke perhaps though probably not the one you intended. Doesn’t help that the presentation is also… inconsistent to put it mildly; 1999 called and left a message about “animation blending”. Nice lighting model though.
The animations are getting a revamp soon. They are setting up a motion capture studio to sort them out.
The fight is really fun. Even more so when the Kraken shows up to play at the same time.
I guess it’s tough to see whats going on without playing, although you could also be describing a CS video from what you wrote.
As for what I see on display:
Non-instance raid-level encounter without a set or hard limit on the number of players able to participate/contribute/benefit.
A water-based encounter that has it’s own physics+limitations/variables (kraken being a big one, as seen, but also how shots travel in water, the needed specs to shoot in water, etc).
Player-crafted boats of various sizes, cannon loadouts, and entry points.,
Two rival clans teaming up to take something down.
Player-crafted gear and enchants brought to maximize the effectiveness vs this particular mob.
A balance of magic and physical dps, along with debuff magic, with various ‘stages’ that the mob goes through ‘at random’.
Player-skill vs gear/hotbar mashing; no matter the gear or characters brought, you still have to hit the thing enough to out-dps it’s natural regen (which is much harder than the video makes it look)
The very real threat of any other clan coming by to steal the kill, along with all your gear and ships.
Player-run looting. Notice how the players act at the end once the tombstone comes up, even between rival clans.
Now, tell me what game has half of the above as a ‘side show’ to it’s core gameplay (PvP)?
“Now, tell me what game has half of the above as a ‘side show’ to it’s core gameplay (PvP)?”
Few, including Darkfall. What you highlighted aren’t ancillary components to the game introduced in the service of this new encounter type. They are features of the core gameplay that just so happen to feature into a PvE fight, and so they should.
Nonetheless, points like “non-instance raid-level encounter without a set or hard limit on the number of players able to participate/contribute/benefit” are design decisions that have implicit compromises. Without mechanics to limit the number of participants, the encounter can’t be tuned beyond “Need X people with Y type of damage to defeat”. However, what makes this interesting in Darkfall is just that open nature. The design focus seems to be less on the mechanics of the fights themselves and more on how they facilitate the economy, social, and PvP structure of the game. I guess we could argue about whether shooting a slow moving target on a predefined animation track is compelling gameplay, or “player-skill” driven, in of itself, but I will readily grant that the potential for emergent conflicts surrounding this encounter is interesting.
If you want to make snide jabs at WoW’s raiding by comparing it to Darkfall’s equivalent, at least make the best case for Darkfall. Tell me a story about how this clan heard about the dragon, how it negotiated with another to plot its downfall, how it had scouts set up to inform them of other clans who might snipe the kill, how they gathered the last minute materials to craft the weapons needed to bring down the beast, etc. WoW doesn’t have that; it’s not that type of game. What it does have is moment-to-moment group PvE gameplay that looks to be more interesting than what that video demonstrates.
“Few, including Darkfall.”
Wait wait, so now because this uses the strength of Darkfall that already exist (sandbox and all that), it does not count towards the encounter itself? Huh?
Sorry, the game has it, others don’t. That’s impressive, even with ‘1999’ animation.
This “new” content relies on what already exists to be anything other than a virtual shooting gallery with a bunch of bros in Renaissance Faire garb. Your rhetorical question was pretty clear: Darkfall does what WoW don’t and it even does the WoW stuff too.
Except not. Darkfall does what it does and now it has more, simple NPCs to beat on in its virtual sandbox. Taken by themselves, ie as a true side show, those encounters do not seem compelling. With the added context of potential PvP implications, it does.
I’d wager most guilds that raid in WoW would fail at taking down the ice dragon, but that aside, ‘side show’ does not mean the content exists in a void. I mean in WoW it does, since everything is instanced and one game aspect has nothing to do with another (Lvling, raiding, PvP), but hey, another plus for DF with that. Just like this being added is just MORE content in DF, not replacement content like Cata will be.
What’s interesting is you are trying to compartmentalize this one encounter, much like WoW does with everything, rather than see it as a piece of an overall world that is constantly seeing additions. Different mentality I guess.
“Now, tell me what game has half of the above as a ‘side show’ to it’s core gameplay (PvP)?”
EQ1 like 10 years ago? Plus we had the bonus of actually having some PVE content not just running ourselves into Blood Walls or whatever you call that shit to AFk increase our scores.
Besides the awful graphics and the swimmer approaching the boat with a rolling pin in his hand, I am sure that the threat of another “clan” or whatever you counterstrike PVP’ers call yourself approaching is almost NIL since all the retards playing this game are PROBABLY on the actual boat.
I think you just set Darkfall advertising back to 1997 where this game belongs
This game is not WoW…i must hate!!!!!!!
I’m gonna have to disagree about the CS video part. If by CS you mean Counter-Strike, that is. The only part that could translate besides the “ranged shots” imo would possibly be the “animation blending”, but only if we’re tlaking about 1.6 as Source is quite pretty (got a pretty mouth, boy).
Has anyone killed the Demon yet? I have been looking out for a video. From what I hear he is expected to drop a Demon key to fit the new Demon Chests.
I just wonder if he has something cool he does too.
I believe he has been killed, yea. I don’t think he is as difficult as the dragons either. No clue about the demon key/chest though, not heard anything about that on the forums.
It looks like a browser-based game.
Looks nice. I think the problem for people that haven’t play this game, or even this kind of game, is that they don’t understand the context. This isn’t queueing up for the ice dragon. This is a clan (or some group), building a boat, getting together, hitting the high seas, and going on an adventure. Thats what games like Darkfall mean to me, and thats what this kind of video represents to me. Its that kind of experience that WoW and other games doesn’t provide for me, and maybe most people simple don’t care. Fine. But for me, its just a really amazing feeling/experience to be a part of a game like this.
Aye, though I find it hard to play Darkfall nowadays, when I played at EU launch it was one of my best gaming experiences ever. Working with my guild to gather enough stone so we could build the walls, buildings, and defenses for our city. Then, defending that city which we spent so much time building. It is hard to top that.
That looked fantastic! I loved the way the dragon quarters round and round the ship, and the entry and exit into the water is just superb. If Darkfall had a PvE server, I’d be downloading the game right now after watching that video.
What was the waterspout? Was the dragon creating that?
I do thinkthat any ship hit directly amidships by a waterspout like that should break up and sink immediately, though. Also I think that when a dragon is obviously losing it should fly out of range and not return unles it’s worked out a better strategy.
Both of those are too much realism for any MMO, though, so I don’t hold that against Darkfall :)
The big water cone or whatever is one of the ice dragons abilities, yes. And I think the ship was taking damage from the ice dragon, it was just being repaired as they went.
If this “expansion” took 8 months to release, when can DF2010 be expected? End of 2011? In all seriousness though, all the new content is just bringing former players back in droves, huh? :) Fun Flags are FUN!!! Face it, Darkfall is bleeding. You know it. I know it. Many others know it. Of course you’ll never admit as much.
/end troll
I’m not a DF player. I played a trial and really enjoyed it but had recently subscribed to Eve and will only do one sub at a time.
I don’t get the former DF player culture. There seems to be this need among former DF players to hang around any forum related to DF to bash the game and those that enjoy it. Anyone that disagrees seems to be a “fanboi lying to himself.” They go beyond what Ob says above and use subscription numbers as evidence not that the game is dying but that it has no value even to those that remain. I often read those posts and wonder how jazz musicians would feel to be told their music is worthless because that can’t sell as many albums as Kanye.
Not that DF players are universally perfect forum citizens — the default response to haters seems to be “go back to WoW and leave our game alone.” Which is an appropriate comment, sometimes, but it occasionally gets thrown at a player who doesn’t want to change the core game but has other issues perhaps with the UI or current tactics like bunny-hopping.
I think the game has potential, much in the way that Eve did in the early days. I’m pretty sure Eve was bleeding for quite awhile before it turned around, and Eve is pretty secure now.
As long as there’s a core that is willing to stick it out or at least keeps coming back, I see no reason for this game to die.
I think part of it is some of them quit due to a lack of success, and success in Darkfall is highly related to player skill (vs just pure time played) and socialization (being a contributing member of a solid clan). They see others enjoying the game, but when they log in they can’t seem to find the fun, so obviously it must be the game and not them.
Others just love to hate, especially on PvP games. But hey, better to be hated than not mentioned at all, right?
Surely you see the irony in this statement, SynCaine? ;)
Do tell.
Just replace “pvp game” with “WoW” and I think it’s pretty comical, considering how much pub you give the latter. ;)
Wow grats Caine, you just described EQ1 like 10 years ago. Whoopdee fucking dooo
Its nice that your commodore 64 MMO got a cute little dragon to kill on your ASCII graphics boat though!
Best part of zoneless, full loot FFA PvP EQ1 was…?
Not having to wait 10 years to play a game like Darkfall?
Off the meds today?
I’m not sure what those design decisions have to do with the topic at hand. Though I guess, from your perspective, everything is better in Darkfall because *your head is always on a swivel*!
You find mining ore to be boring? Think again! PvP could happen at any moment!
Annoyed that you have to spend 30 minutes running from point A to point B? Don’t get complacent! You never know when PvP might happen! Running: 10 times more awesome in Darkfall!
Now you are starting to get it, yes.
I know you jest, but this is actually a big part of the appeal. Traveling in WoW is boring and they took most of it out because they realized it served no point most of hte time, and certainly not after the first time. In a game like Darkfall it does matter, so yes, running is better in Darkfall precisely because there are a lot of game mechanics predicated on spontaneous or unplanned moments.
In WoW everything is planned and measured. I honestly can see the appeal in that sort of thing, especially among gamers who don’t have the time to “wait” for something exciting to happen (or to go make something exciting happen), but its just too controlled an experience for me at this point.
The last month I played WoW I pretty much just stayed in or outside the Badge Merchant room. Queue up, run as far as we can, hopefully people don’t bitch and quit, hopefully people don’t get the 1 item they wanted off the first boss and quit, hopefully the first boss doesn’t fail to drop the one thing someone wants and they quit. Rinse, repeat, buy one item after doing the same thing 25 times in a row.
Well, honestly, WoW on a PvP server a few years ago did most of those things with world bosses. Raid targets that existed in the open game world that could be fought by any number of players and could be fought over by opposing sides. Not really that different.
Admittedly WoW got rid of that stuff, so you can’t claim it has it NOW, but it used to. Darkfall isn’t inventing anything new here. WoW had it before Darkfall, and EQ had it before WoW. *shrug* Whatever.
I played WoW then, and minus the aiming, friendly fire, FFA full loot PvP, yea, it sorta kinda did.
Wow…
You clearly haven’t played anything that was not an EQ clone.
WoW has never had anything close to this.
Correction EQ had it, Asheron’s Call had it (and is still has the best combat system for pvp to date), then WoW had it.
It’s great, the better Darkfall becomes, the more haters we get bashing the game, that’s a good sign.
Very interesting read, both articles and comments. I played so many mmo, including DF for a year after beta, and this Dragon opens a whole new depth level for Darkfall. I’ve resubbed already. :)