As I was playing the recently purchased Disciples III, ($20 sale on Steam. After about an hour it seems like an interesting take on Heroes of Might and Magic) I was also in the Heroes Fate vent (allies of Blood) waiting for word that we were moving out for some siege action. I got dragged down, asked to log in, and informed that we were using some house recalls to get to the mainland to assist at the Vranghorn hamlet.
Now it’s been a while since my last real siege or PvP encounter, so I was definitely rusty. I grabbed a half-decent siege bag, recalled to the designated house, and grouped up with the rest of Blood and Heroes Fate. As we rode towards the hamlet we came across a decent-sized group of enemies from VAMP, and after a brief skirmish both sides pulled back and we arrived at Vrang. Sadly that was all the action we were going to see at that siege, as the attackers never showed up and shortly after go-live the one large siege stone was taken down and the siege was over.
We all recalled back to Izkand on Cairn to get ready for the second siege of the night, the hamlet of Tirghan. The first skirmish of this siege happened off the northern coast of Cairn. I arrived late, but it was clear we were heavily outnumbered here and just trying to pick off as many as we could. As I swam to the site of the conflict, I saw a piranha-like swarm of players in the water, with magic being fired above and arrows below. It was both deadly and impressive to watch, but sadly the encounter did not end well for us.
We made our last stand on a small island, trying to fire as much damage as we could on the enemies as they got out of the water to charge us. We held briefly, but soon were overwhelmed and cut down. A friendly boat was spawned and sent out towards our location, but it arrived too late to save us, and was eventually called back.
The hamlet of Tirghan itself is interesting in that it has a very tall spire right next to it, the top inaccessible without the use of magic to ‘launch’ up. At the very top is where our siege stone was placed, and it was at this location that HF/Blood had marked 10+ runes. The plan was to simultaneously recall directly to the top, knock/kill anyone off, and hold that position until the hamlet went vulnerable and could be captured.
As the ‘first strike’ party of ten were recalling, everyone else tossed as many buffs on them as possible, and then had to listen to vent as the fighting raged. From what I could hear, our initial group was able to secure the position, but a few of them got knocked off in the melee and into the enemies hands below. Their deaths were not in vain however, as we soon had a nexus portal up and running to get reinforcements to the spire. When this resource was used up (only 10 players can go through before the nexus is down), the rest of us mounted up and made our way over to the hamlet by land.
We gathered at a village just east of the hamlet, a small river dividing us and the enemy. For the next hour or so various skirmishes were fought on both sides this river, as we did our best to distract the enemy and buy our spire group more time. As the fighting went on, the enemy continued to try and get to the top of the spire to knock someone off and slowly chip away at that force. The race was on, with our side hoping to delay enough to stop the enemy from knocking down the siege stone, the enemy hoping to knock enough of us off the top to secure it and end the siege.
At this point however we were still outnumbered on the ground, so the best we could manage was to make a focused push at their numbers around the base of the spire, hope to get a few to overextend, and then fall back when they organized and charged us. The back and forth was intense, especially since at this point I had lost my last mount AND had my staff break. Low on arrows and food, unable to heal or escape quickly, I figured it was only a matter of time before I was chased and cut down.
That moment seemed to arrive after one of our more aggressive assaults, one that actually reached the very base of the spire. We got a little overconfident, and while we had the enemy backing up at first, they shortly countered and had us running. Their pursuit continued across the river, and as I ran I could both hear and feel arrows flying all around. Our side continued to flee past the village on mounts, and I figured I was as good as dead now, unable to keep up without a mount. In a last ditch effort, I climbed up an arching rock structure right in the village and crouched down in a tiny depression, hoping I was hidden enough to avoid detection. Luckily for me it was also night time at this point, which cuts visibility down drastically. As the enemies swarmed below me, I held my breath and hoped no one looked up. Moments passed, but eventually the enemies moved back to the spire and I was safe.
With about 30 minutes left until the hamlet itself went vulnerable, our full force was assembled and we made a push. The enemy held us at the hamlet for a while, with magic and arrows flying from both sides, and the occasional melee breaking out. Inch by inch however we pushed them back, and a few well-timed charges cut into their numbers and ultimately broke them. The remaining forces fled to the south, and many were cut down. After the hamlet was secured, one of the new ships (the Junk, officially pronounced Yoo-unk but far more fun to say junk in vent: “pulling out my junk”) was spawned and the zap towers were disabled.
The new ship is great, with six cannons per side and a nice layout. Its one weakness is its very low hitpoints, but for its cost it brings some devastating firepower. Our allies also spawned a Brigantine to help with the barrage, and the appearance of two ships drew the attention of DHW, who live nearby in the city of Serruk.
DHW made one push towards the hamlet, but quickly saw they were heavily outnumbered. As the hamlet had yet to be captured, we just pushed them back but did not pursue. As soon as the siege went live, the ships pounded the hamlet’s stone, making quick work of it. With our objective captured, many of us went after DHW, pushing them all the way back into their city. At this point it was past 1am for me, and I had already banked my siege gear and replaced it with a robe and some cheap-ish weapons. With nothing to lose, I charged into the city and swung at any enemy in sight. We managed to kill a few, but eventually our disorganization caught up to us and people started retreating. As I had little reason to retreat, I followed the SG of DHW, Johan Veil, into the cities mage guild and got into a quick melee. My night ended with the world spinning and everything going black.
It’s good to be back.
(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.)
Hardcore Casual 
Always enjoy reading these posts.
Overdue for a good read like this.
Heh, if I only had the schedule to do things like this; 4+ hours uninterrupted is no problem time-wise, but playing in prime time is rarely possible. Oh well, nice read anyway.
Post about that on Monday.
Yeah its funny, these posts just describing your experiences are probably the best advertisement possible for the game.
One question, what goes into “spawning” a ship? Is there a flat cost for each ship, or once you have the blueprint and materials (for example) there is a smaller fee each time to spawn?
I ask because there is obviously measures in place to prevent constant or too-easy spawning, but it also appears it is a pretty regular thing for guilds to use that doesn’t ‘cost’ too much.
The ships are built with lots of resources and become a very valuable figurine that can be carried in your inventory.
The spawning he is referring to is just making the boat appear.
The boat can be despawned by anyone (with a 2 minute time to do it) so at that point its a large and very attractive target that must be defended constantly.
Ok so once you have the figurine you can use it any time to spawn the ship, but once its destroyed I assume there is a cooldown timer before you can spawn again?
But the figurine has unlimited uses? And can be looted as normal?
Example of a ship
Brigantine = 9000 gold, 30 ship modules (300 gold 30 iron 150 wood 35 cloth each), 900 iron, 4500 wood, 1050 cloth, 1 Astrolabe (Rare-Very Rare drop)
Once it is destroyed it is gone, but until then you have unlimited uses with no reuse timer. ( to my knowledge…all I have every owned is a raft haha)
The figurine is like any other item in that game in terms of functionality. Ships, mounts, warhulks, they all fall under the ‘item’ category in Darkfall, and can be looted, destroyed, or traded. And destroyed means gone.
The reason spawning a ship or two draws attention is because of the time to despawn it (2min without it moving at all I believe). A clan like DHW hopes to swing by, quickly assault the boat by getting aboard and killing everyone, and drive away with it (anyone in the game, from a vet to a first hour noob, can use ships, mounts, warhulks).
It’s a risk/reward thing. They showed up to try and grab a boat during the confusion of a siege, but ended up getting pushed back and losing a few people, but the cost of those gear bags is nothing compared to the boat (it could be, if someone had a top-end gear bag, but you don’t wear those for something like this), so it’s worthwhile for them to come out and try.
I enjoy these posts too, just like I look forward to the occasional EvE drama. But I also realize that there’s too little of that stuff to outweigh the negatives of both games.
Good read.
If you ever get the chance to do some dungeon delving would really enjoy that review/write-up.
Yea, that’s something I really want to check out. The dungeon on Cairn (our current location) did not change much, so I’ve yet to really experience the before/after work.
You are forgetting in your story that your forces outnumbered the defenders nearly 3-1 at the end.
Your leaders lied to LoD and cried zerg, saying we broke AvA despite us knowing your clan never intended to be AvA.
There was a reason why you guys kept falling back, you were waiting for Dominions alliance and CP to show up, then you convinced LoD you were being zerged and they showed up.
It was pretty embarrasing for you. Luckily, some of your allies in that fight were so disgusted they offered to help take the hamlet back. And most of the server already offered their help.
GG
Of course I don’t know what knowledge SynCaine was privy to, however, he pretty much only recently returned to DF. As far as I’ve known he was never really in charge of a group of people. As for the game of Darkfall itself, it is much like EVE in the sense that people will infiltrate and report back to their true alliance. This leads to paranoid leaders giving out orders without much explanation to the foot soldiers. IMO the odds of SynCaine just being a foot soldier are probably good.
Oh, and wieners.
Fair response, but nonetheless — we got zerged. It’s statements like “At this point however we were still outnumbered on the ground” that make me seriously confused. Only at the very beginning were the attackers outnumbered, and even that may be more like “even”. See my video:
http://www.own3d.tv/video/35917/Tirghan_Siege
Yea I was not that concerned with ForumFall numbers and the rest. The fights were close enough to be interesting for the most part. Early on we did not have enough to hold our ground, at the end we had enough to wash over the hamlet. The stuff in between was even/good.
You have a half a second cameo at the end of that video, btw :)
I have trouble with DF pvp, hard for me to target people with everyone flying all over my screen. I am wondering if this is a function of my computer, which is starting to get old, as much as a function of my need for DF pvp practice. Any thoughts on a minimum fps or rig needed to at least help one be competitive in PVP?
To be honest, you need an above-average rig to play Darkfall at high level PvP (siege). I have rather beast hardware, get 160+ FPS in Darkfall with it maxed at 1900×1200, but even that during a siege drops to around 40-50 FPS. Anything less than 30FPS is, IMO, unplayable in terms of being competitive. A ping below 150ms or so is also needed. Something below 100ms is noticeable.
Now, all of that said, if you can’t or don’t have the above, you might be able to turn everything down for a siege, and while the game will look like trash, your FPS should hold up a bit bitter.