As previously noted, Darkfall: Unholy Wars took a huge step towards becoming a sustainable sandbox with the recent increase in gear loss from PvP. As some have asked, I don’t know if it’s enough, but it’s certainly a start, and more importantly shows that AV is serious about the game and making it something worthwhile for the long run to MMO players, rather than continuing down the path of creating an oversized, risk-free PvP arena game.
This post isn’t about analyzing the change however, as it’s much too early to do that. Instead let’s see how Forumfall is taking the news (this below is a reply to how PvE would work as a sink, since the poster suggested that would be a better solution than a sink from PvP):
Remove resources? I don’t care if resources are removed or not, you do. I want active activities like mob farming to actually be worth it. Why? Because I actually play the game. I want to see an active world, and I want contested mob spawns. Does that mean make bandits drop 50 neithal essences each? No, it doesn’t. Give us open world mobs that are actually worth farming though. The Golems would be a great start, limited amount of them in the world, and they have a fairly high respawn timer.
The above is the best of the worst, at least in terms of the content/froth ratio that runs rampant on Forumfall. It does, of course, completely fall on its face in terms of logic, and that really is the point here.
For a long time I had feared that AV was listening to Forumfall too much, and were just doing what Forumfall said it wanted. I think the above post is a nice highlight of that. The player is asking for mobs to be ‘worthwhile’, at the same time that he is saying he doesn’t care to balance how resources enter and exit the game.
Bad AV would just do what was asked, buff mobs, and a month later Forumfall would once again ask for mobs to be made ‘worthwhile’, or more likely complain that non-mob rewards are now ‘worthless’, and to buff those. This, of course, assumes there still exists anything of value, an end-point that DF:UW was rapidly approaching, with most already regularly PvP’ing in the second-best gear (r70). Once R80 is common, what then? Do a themepark-style soft-reset?
So as predicted, the usual suspects of Forumfall are throwing their hissy fit as they experience actual consequence for PvPing. What is surprising, and encouraging, is that others on Forumfall are seeing the benefits of this addition, and trying to push back the idiocy. Ultimately it doesn’t matter so long as AV continues to show a basic understand of MMO design and what’s important to keep a game going.
Furthermore, most of those currently complaining will change their tune, as AV is finally able to add more meaningful and interesting faucets to the game, and those faucets will stay relevant for longer than a week. On that front they have some good plans, and recent actions suggest they will correctly follow-through on said plans.
As for the game’s future overall, as multiple MMOs have shown in the past, a game can slowly build itself back when its core issues are fixed and things start working again. Launch is the best time to grab the most players, certainly, but especially in the MMO niche space, where DF:UW resides, players have limited quality options, and are more than willing to revisit something if they hear it has improved. If AV continues down the path they have set out on with the last update, they will be successful. Here’s hoping.
Hardcore Casual 
As I wrote in the comments of your other post, the magnitude of the change is so small that the change itself is inconsequential and won’t make much difference (good or bad).
The point you raise is how this change will be perceived – which may or may not be inconsequential. The jury is still out, but I think the silent majority were simply relieved it wasn’t 50%.
The real question ~ can DF:UW build itself back up?
Syncaine wrote: “As for the game’s future overall, as multiple MMOs have shown in the past, a game can slowly build itself back when its core issues are fixed and things start working again. […] DF:UW players have limited quality options, and are more than willing to revisit something if they hear it has improved. “
This is where our opinions really diverge. I simply don’t think the above is possible. The reason is because Darkfall’s REAL problem at this point is it’s population.
At the end of the day, players drive content in a game like Darkfall. We all know it’s not a solo game by any means and right now the biggest obstacle for returning players is an empty world.
I love the game and I agree that if you want this type of game, your options are limited. I just think it’s too little too late to be fixing “core issues” with the game. And that’s even if you agree on what the core issues are (which I don’t).
It works like this — player returns and is excited about the new changes. In short order, he finds an empty world and no one he knows is still playing. The excitement he felt quickly fades and he quits again.
The challenge is momentum. When a game launches, it has significant momentum. In some cases, the momentum continues to build as a critical mass is achieved and the game reaches long-term sustainability. More often, games lose momentum and the game declines.
No one will argue that DF:UW has lost all of it’s momentum. And I’ll give AV some credit, they are trying hard to build some momentum. We’ve seen some big patches and even bigger discounts.
But the problem is that they are only attracting people in ones and twos and they needs to attract people in the hundreds.
**fixed** And I’ll give AV some credit, they are trying hard to build some NEW momentum.
So you are saying launch or nothing, and AV can’t change core problems enough to save UW at this point, in your opinion?
I think the DF ship has sailed and unless AV comes up with a creative way to spark a rush of subscriptions, people will join in ones and twos, see an empty world — and quit.
Fair enough.
And I ask because that will pretty obviously heavily colour your perspective on anything discussed ref the game.
That said if that is your belief why do YOU still play, post, think or what-have-you about DF:UW?
Limited quality options. :)
Definitely a factor.
I don’t think anyone will argue that if we were tripping over really solid pvp sandboxes everywhere that AV wouldn’t be in a rough spot.
I am betting straight out of my ass though that AV has more time to trudge down the right path (which they are firmly headed down right now imo) then people give them credit for.
The Repopulation (future game) seems to be gaining support. Although, personally, I think they’ll chicken out or fail to deliver on what they are calling the ‘hardcore server’ ruleset.
I don’t hold out hope that Repopulation will survive being designed for a cash shop. It is on the radar though, but really if I was going to go to a sci-fi game I would just crawl back to EVE. Pathfinder is on my radar as well.
Frankly it is really EASY to give AV that year when you start having this conversation about what is upcoming…
The world is not nearly as empty as you make it out. Currently a fight is found at every village that goes live, sieges are attended, and players can be found dueling in Sanguine. Mob spawn activity is still somewhat low, but that will increase as this change really kicks in.
Population isn’t something you can directly control. If the game is solid and sustainable players will come and stay, if its not they don’t. DF:UW is getting there.
sidtheconfident: “I think the DF ship has sailed and unless AV comes up with a creative way to spark a rush of subscriptions, people will join in ones and twos, see an empty world — and quit.”
sidthedoubter: “There really isn’t enough data to draw such correlations, my confident twin. If a failing game fixes its economy and continues to fail, that’s not evidence that fixing an economy doesn’t work — it’s simply evidence that the game continues to fail. And wait a second, you didn’t give any examples of a game that fixed its economy and continued to fail! You’re trying to trick me into accepting your shaky evidence by not providing any evidence whatsoever!
The only way you would really be able to test this hypothesis is to take a game failing because of its economy and then release a second version with a fixed economy, and see which one is more popular, and then relaunch a version with the fixed economy that is substantially similar but changed to be different on the surface.”
(sidthedoubter is an evolution of the opinions found on https://syncaine.com/2014/02/13/turbine-finally-updates-us-on-the-continued-success-of-their-f2p-conversions/#comment-179922, since a certain someone gets confused without exact attribution)
Wow, sid really crushed sid’s argument there. Easy, fella.
Apologies everyone. It appears that I have unintentionally caused Rammstein’s schizophrenia to flare up again.
It’s nice to have fans! <3
Hey Sid, I have a few friends who actually have schizophrenia, so I find that comment offensive. In the interests of civilized discourse, could you possibly limit your insults to me to categories such as “faggot nigger mancunt”, or the like? I know your fans are counting on your discretion.
No can do. I have lots of friends that fit into those categories and I can’t have all my mancunt friends sending me nasty emails because I insulted them by including you.
Surely we can find some really filthy insults for you to use that we can both agree on?
What about “degraded shit-eating crackwhore”, do you think you could call me that?
:) I’m sure we can think of something that won’t offend the schizophrenics or mancunts of the world.
—
More seriously and out of respect, this will also (hopefully) be my last post on this topic. I can’t imagine that Syn likes the two of us engaging in flame wars on his blog.
Admittedly, I am genuinely curious why you pay so much attention to what I write. Was it something specific I wrote, did I piss you off in-game or just a trend you found in my general awesome-ness?
How is me asking you to restrict yourself to a certain category of insults towards me a flame-war?
“Was it something specific I wrote, did I piss you off in-game or just a trend you found in my general awesome-ness?”
You’re the one continually insulting me; so I’m not sure why you think this question isn’t better applied to you.
Fuck whatever Syn wants. Keep this up please. Shit is entertaining.
True, it is entertaining, I especially liked the part where he basically stated he’d be fine calling me a “faggot nigger mancunt”, but that the opinion of a few of his friends was keeping him from it. I would say this thread has been both entertaining, and revealing about Sid’s character.
You sir, are a lousy cook. Those words you keep putting in my mouth taste like absolute shit.
(apologies to any lousy cooks offended by this comment)
https://syncaine.com/2014/02/17/dfuw-if-everyone-had-diamonds/#comment-182617
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Lying_by_omission
Apology accepted.
Merge Servers.