Darkfall Re-Launch

Posted on October 18, 2010 by SynCaine

Tasos has clearly started trolling ForumFall. With his brief mention of Darkfall 2, new servers, and ‘future plans’, ForumFall has been working itself silly speculating and trying to figure it all out. He somewhat ruins the fun with this explanation, though even that did not satisfy everyone.

The mention of a ‘re-launch’ does bring up an interesting point though, one that is very relevant to recent happenings in the MMO genre. Can you re-launch an MMO that is already live? And if so, what does that exactly mean? It’s certainly not a full wipe or ‘redo’ of launch. That’s called an NGE-level event, and it’s not a smart move. It’s also not as simple as opening up new servers and advertising; that’s called a push, not a re-launch.

No, a re-launch is some rather drastic change to your game that draws the attention of outside gamers, while not totally screwing those who have supported you up to that point. It sounds simple, but it’s a make-or-break event that could potentially go horribly wrong.

DDO was ‘re-launched’ when it went F2P. At its original release DDO was a solid game that, among other issues, simply lacked content. What was there was fun enough, but when you could finish it in less than a few months, that’s a major issue for a company hoping to keep people subbed and paying month after month. Time solved the content issue, as over the years DDO saw many large additions that ultimately fleshed out the entire game and gave the average players months of ‘stuff’ to do.

Combine that major launch issue being solved with just the overall stabilization and bug-fixing that happens from years of being live (plus some graphical upgrades), and to a totally new player, DDO looks like a great game. Make a big splash by going F2P, and hey, re-launch.

And with the dust settling, we are seeing exactly what DDO is, a solid but not mega-hit title that has its place in the genre. It is, at its core, still the same DDO that originally launched. It’s still all about instanced, small-group dungeon-crawls with a semi-action combat system based around D&D. Such a game has less appeal than the ponies-for-everyone WoW, but it does deserve more players than it had pre-re-launch (what?).

In many ways, Darkfall fits that same mold. The original launch drew a lot of people due to the many unique things the game brought to the genre, yet for many the game was simply too raw to continue with. Be it the UI, the graphics, the ‘grind’, etc, Darkfall at launch was more a peek into what could be than a fully delivered end-product. It’s only a sad reflection on the genre that even in that state, Darkfall was already a top-tier sandbox MMO.

But it’s re-launch could make a very significant impact. For starters, more and more players are discovering that Darkfall is more than just a PvP game, and certainly not the gankers paradise PvP haters try to paint it as. As the non-PvP aspects continue to improve and get refined, this word-of-mouth momentum will only continue. Next, the re-vamp of both the graphics and the UI not only draws attention, but helps reduce that initial “first five minutes” shock that many currently experience.

At the end of the day Darkfall’s core is what it is, a sandbox PvP MMO. But much like EVE, that does not mean everyone player is expressly looking for just that. Sandbox PvP MMO also means unique PvE experiences not found in themeparks, a deeper-than-a-puddle economy, and niche roles such as event organizers or political pundits that truly serve a purpose. All of that takes time to develop however, and that’s exactly what has been happening since launch.

With the upcoming (soon…) release of the Darkfall 2.0 expansion, in coordination with a focused advertising push, Darkfall can indeed ‘re-launch’ and capture an entire new audience, while still keeping its very rabid core happy. But like the concept of a re-launch itself, it’s easier said then done, so we’ll just have to wait and see how Aventurine plays its cards.

Me? My money’s on the house.

Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was the first to go supernova.

(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.)

Posted in beta, crafting, Darkfall Online, DDO, MMO design, Patch Notes | 19 Comments

PvP Hotspots

Posted on October 15, 2010 by SynCaine

If you build it, they will come. With sharp objects. And the intent to murder.

That’s how PvP in MMOs works, yet so many attempts to create PvP hotspots fail. Too often the approach is to design something that is fun to fight over, without putting much thought into WHY the players want to fight over it. “Because it’s fun” is not a good reason, nor is “that’s our PvP space”.

You don’t just PvP for the sake of PvP, at least not long-term, in the MMO genre. You do in Quake, but then again that’s ALL you do in Quake. No, you PvP in an MMO because of X, and X better be a damn good reason. That’s repeatable. Often.

Giving out the uber sword of awesome to the winner is not the answer. Let’s ignore balance and all that, but as soon as I win the sword, I’m done with that PvP hotspot. Everyone is done with it as soon as the uber sword is no longer ‘best in slot’. If the hotspot is intended for a group (god help you if it’s a fixed size), that hotspot likely has a shorter lifespan then the time it took to develop.

You also can’t expect hotspots to just happen. Tarren Mills happened, but it was random (and quickly killed by Blizzard…), and later attempts to recreate Tarren Mills failed horribly. If you get one, sweet, but if your plan revolves around that happening, expect trouble.

The genres best PvP hotspots all have one major factor in common: players wanted to be there, badly, for reasons beyond PvP. Darkness Falls from DAoC was an amazing PvP hotspot, but not because of its great PvP. Yes, once players picked up on it you would go in just to PvP, but the original and constant driver for that area had nothing to do with PvP, but rather the great and varied (lvl wise) PvE and it’s (at the time) unique reward structure. The same can be said for early UO dungeons. You went there because of the PvE rewards, but you went in knowing PvP was also likely to happen. The most contested systems in EVE are such not because the community as a whole said ‘PvP hotspot!’, but because of their logistical and material benefits (bonus points for EVE here, some systems see heavy action due to player history, and the desire for one Corp/Alliance to capture the ‘home’ of their rival).

Aventurine has attempted multiple times to create such hotspots, with varied results. The Sea Fortresses are successful (for the most part, they are not perfect) due to their rarity, uniqueness (water), and now increased rewards. Villages are less successful because of their lack of rarity, non-uniqueness, and current lack of meaningful rewards. The system is simply not set up in such a way as to encourage conflict. The time spent by a player at the location is limited (a small group knocks down the stone quickly, and then they move on), the overall motivation is low, and the PvP is too easily avoided (if you are capping a village, not only can you do it naked with just a hammer, but you can also run away with little loss).

The recently revamped PvE is a step in the right direction, primarily because it gets players into dungeons and makes it worthwhile to stay in them. Similar to Darkness Falls, control of a dungeon is beneficial, the elimination of enemies is noticeable (vs say, killing someone in WoW, where they simply respawn and fly right back in 5 seconds with zero risk), and the rewards are such that new players and veterans alike will always have a reason (generally gold) to go back time and time again.

Regardless of the game though, creating a PvP hotspot starts not with the actual PvP, but with the act of getting the players to that area, and keeping them around long enough to cause a clash. It’s only at this point does the actual enjoyment of the PvP start to factor in, but with most examples, they never even get that far.

Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris does not have a seat on the UN Security Council. He has a couch.

Posted in Combat Systems, Dark Age of Camelot, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, PvP, RvR, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 16 Comments

WAR, SW:TOR, and the ‘death’ of the MMO genre

Posted on October 14, 2010 by SynCaine

God, where to start with this debacle?

My anger at WAR has actually increased since leaving the game, for a number of reasons. When I left the game I thought it had a good base and was just missing a few obvious items, items I assumed were cut or left out due to shipping early and, once added, would ‘complete’ the game. The big item of course is a third faction (if not more), but also other stuff like a true Darkness Falls-like dungeon, small group RvR that mattered, and reasonable combat balance. Last I’ve heard none of this has happen.

Then you read the above, and even from people who worked or are still working on the game, no one really talks about the true issues. You are bitching that EA did not run WAR TV commercials? Are you kidding me? You sold a million boxes; I don’t think advertising was the issue. I think it had more to do with everyone leaving after a month when they realized your game was three steps back from what DAoC was. Oooh no the character models are ugly, that’s the problem! Really, jesus…

From the shit-show job of collision detection (again, good idea, horrible execution), to the ass-backwards city capture system, to the cool-yet-horrible classes (hey lets have a melee guy who can dish out top-end dps while also heal and buff himself, ya! And lets have game-breaking crowd-control in a PvP game, ya! Especially because we saw it work SO WELL in DAoC, ya!), WAR is so full of baseline fail it’s embarrassing, and now, given a glimpse behind the scenes, we see the monkeys are still flinging poo and crying about issues that have nothing, AT ALL, to do with why the game really failed.

Now the reason WAR gets to me is because all Mythic had to do was release DAoC 2 to have a huge hit, and the Warhammer IP on top of that would have just blown it out of the water (especially if you expand the setup from three sides to however many races you include from Warhammer, since, you know, they all hate each other and have reasons to fight and at times team up). Then you hear that they did have DAoC 2 in pre-development and canned it to focus on making WAR more WoW-like, and it’s enough to inspire murder.  Toss in that EA actually let Mythic do it’s thing, rather than be old EA and take over control, and yea, everyone making decisions related to that game can straight up DIAF.

All of that brings me to this conclusion: I’m all set with MMORPGs being ‘mainstream’. From Blizzard showing that more subs = less content development + $25 reskin jokes, to AAA failures like Tabula Rasa, WAR, FFXIV, EQ2 (when compared to EQ1) etc not only bringing nothing worthwhile from all those millions spend, but actually failing to even reach the baseline levels that games with a fraction of their dev budget reached. I’m just waiting for the day when some idiot with a big title at a big company declares the genre ‘dead’ and we can go back to 300k being a big deal, 100k being a success, and 50k being totally viable. God knows we will at least see people with a clue making decisions, and hey, we might actually get content updates that are worth a shit more than once every three years (and most likely for free at that).

And I’m hoping that ‘death’ arrives with SW:TOR. If even half the crap about that game is true, it’s going to be an E.T., bury-copies-in-the-desert-sized disaster. Nothing, and I mean nothing released about that game has interested me in the least, and the very basis for the game (dev-driven story) is a joke when you consider what MMOs are all about. Yes, please spend 300m+ creating a Dragon Age-like Sci-Fi game (at best) with a monthly fee that you expect me to replay over and over with a different class to hear all of the sound-bites and sure-to-be-awesome MMO-game plots and stories (that, lets be honest, they will vary only slightly, with the majority of the stuff repeating exactly like in DA:O). THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT. Oh and Starfox-based space combat, that too!

Just release already so it, and the AAA attention for the genre, can die its long-overdue death.

Posted in Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2, Mass Media, MMO design, Perma-death, PvP, Rant, SW:TOR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 35 Comments

Darkfall blog (no not this one!)

Posted on October 13, 2010 by SynCaine

Aventurine has an official Darkfall blog up, and already it has some good content. Like with any blog, the real challenge is to keep the momentum going and survive long term, providing a steady stream of updates. This, a new Facebook page (Darkville coming soon?!?), and the twitter feed being more active, the communication side of AV has greatly improved in recent months.

Next up, on-time expansions?

Chuck-o-the-day: The world was actually flat until Chuck Norris made it curl up into a ball of fear.

(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.)

Posted in Blogroll, Darkfall Online, Mass Media | 4 Comments

Pearls of Wisdom

Posted on October 12, 2010 by SynCaine

From a thread about “Low Elo Hell” in League of Legends:

Bad players don’t know they are bad, that’s why they are bad, and they will continue to be bad
thus elo hell is created as an excuse.

On the other hand, if you’re a bad player and you know why you’re bad and can determine realistic ways to not do bad, then you’ll get better and stop being bad

Posted in League of Legends, Random | 5 Comments

The cost of saving a buck

Posted on October 12, 2010 by SynCaine

I picked up Final Fantasy 2 for the iPhone not long ago and have really been enjoying it. It’s a classic RPG much like FF1 was, but for a few reasons, FF2 has so far been better. One reason is certainly the pace of the story, as FF1 really dragged and was predictable, while FF2 is moving along at a good clip and has already taken a few interesting turns. Another reason is the class-less advancement system along with how magic works. Since characters are skill+stat based, you are more or less free to develop your party however you see fit, which leads to more flexibility and ‘ownership’ of your characters. Perhaps as I get deeper into it (10hrs so far) things will slow down or get dull, but so far it’s been great.

And since I was enjoying the game, I recommended it to a buddy of mine, although I said he should wait for a sale. The game is regularly priced at 1/5th of a pony reskin ($4.99), and I picked it up when it was down to $2.99. The difference between the sale and regular price is just two bucks, which really is nothing.

Yet I’m sure Square-Enix sold a ton of FF2 copies during the sale (it’s why I bought it), and it is after all almost 50% off. But the actual dollar amount being so small, it seems silly. Why would my buddy wait weeks or months just to save the equivalent of one soda for something he is going to use for 20+ hours? Now granted, if he has others games to play, fine, wait for the sale, but in this case he does not.

Plus lets look at the alternative; how smart is it to buy a half-decent game on sale versus paying ‘full price’ and getting something good? If we are talking PC games at release, it might make sense to avoid the $50 title and pick up a Steam-sale game for $25 or less (maybe, although that still seems silly to save $25 on something over the course of dozens of hours). But something that’s either $5 or $3? Again, that seems silly, yet I had been eyeing FF2 for a bit before buying it due to the sale.

My point is that we seem to do a lot of silly things to save a few bucks at the possible expense of our enjoyment. Not that you are going to hate that $25 game (hopefully anyway), but is having just a decent experience really worth the savings when we are talking the type of time investments we make with gaming? It’s not like we are talking about seeing a 2hr movie or downgrading a single bottle of wine over dinner here.

Why is it that I’ll gladly pay $5 more per person to see a 2hr movie at the premium theater, yet wait for a month to save $2 on an iPhone game? Or better still, buy a $400 video card but then wait for a Steam sale to buy a $20 game to use it with.

Chuck-o-the-day: World records are just things Chuck Norris has not attempted yet.

Posted in iPhone, Random | 4 Comments

Darkfall: First weekend back

Posted on October 11, 2010 by SynCaine

I played a decent amount of Darkfall over the weekend, thought not as much as I had originally planned (damn you all-access League of Legends weekend!). I got myself situated with what’s been going on with Blood and our close friends Heroes Fate, who own a hamlet in Alfar lands and a city on Cairn. I also jumped into some PvP against some of the servers best (guess how that went?), and got a taste of some of the new PvE changes. All in all, good times, just needed more time for them.

The location of the hamlet is… interesting, as it sits right between Zealots main city of Mar Shral and Kolesh, which is owned by now-rival Covert Operations. Both clans feature some of the servers best PvP’ers, and both are known for their highly coordinated, small-group fighting styles. Needless to say, my first night back did not go very well against CO when we did a little raid on their city. Their counter-attack on the hamlet also left me on the ground bleeding in short order. But hey, that’s what you make junk PvP gear bags for, right?

The PvE trip on Cairn went well, as it seems we have a nice little farming route consisting of some Cairn Giants, a Theyril Golem, and an Erodach. With our group of 5 or 6, we only really had a bit of trouble with the Theyril Golem, and ultimately everyone walked away with a good bit of loot. I’ll have to see what I can do solo around the city, along with smaller-group stuff. I’m also very interested in checking out some of the nearby dungeons, both near Cairn and around the Alfar hamlet. Forums report that the dungeon in the Alfar lands got quite a makeover.

Definitely good to be back though, and nice to see many of the same people I played with/against either still around or also coming back. Now to dust off that PvP rust and actually start contributing…

Chuck-o-the-day: MacGyver used a paper clip, balloon, and pencil to make a building explode. Chuck Norris used his feet.

(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.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, PvP | 2 Comments

Darkfall: Ice Dragon kill video

Posted on October 10, 2010 by SynCaine

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.

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online | 36 Comments

30 minutes with Hellfreeze

Posted on October 8, 2010 by SynCaine

I’ve only managed to log about 30 minutes or so into Darkfall since the expansion, but even in EuroGamer time I’ve seen some good things. With the upcoming weekend, I should have a much better report come Monday.

The first and most obvious change is of course the terrain overhaul. It’s certainly noticable, and in a way feels like a fog has been lifted off Agon, with everything now being very crisp and clean. It’s also one of those changes that if you don’t know exactly what to look for, you just assume it always looked like that and don’t notice the change. More before/after screenshots would have been interesting to see, but at this point it matters little. Bottom line is the game looks much better now, and the groundwork for the character model, armor updates, and DX11 effects is firmly in place.

The second, and perhaps even more important piece I noticed is an increase in my FPS, up about 20-30 depending on what was on screen. Considering the graphical improvement, that’s impressive. From scanning the forums a bit, it seems those which middle to upper level hardware have seen in increase, while those on budget PCs are reporting a performance hit. Death to toasts I say.

The final point I want to bring up is a bit more theory for now, but something I’m sure will pan out. The PvE changes, primarily the placement of high-value mobs in dungeons and away from player cities, will lead to more small-scale PvP engagements, which is something the community has been asking for. I don’t know why so many are not seeing this, but it’s not rocket science.

You won’t be bringing a raid-sized force to a dungeon to farm, but you most likely won’t be going solo either. Players know the locations of the dungeons, and checking one for activity is not very difficult. ‘Claiming’ a farming spot of high value has always lead to fighting, yet previously most of these spots were close to a player city, so whoever owned the city owned the spot. So now instead of randomly roaming the world looking for PvP, players can instead check on a few dungeons (plus villages, since those are now worth more and don’t go vulnerable as often). And since many of the dungeons are located between various player cities, I expect they will become PvP hotspots for those who live nearby.

Again, a lot more come Monday.

Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris eats his birthday cake without blowing out the candles.

(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.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design, Patch Notes | 9 Comments

What 6gigs really brings

Posted on October 7, 2010 by SynCaine

A lot of funny things happen when a large number of people are waiting for 6gigs to download, especially when they have been waiting a good number of months to get it. It’s also interesting to watch the feeding frenzy for info from those who finish the download first versus those who have yet to log in. Clearly the difference of a few hours after months of waiting is, well, a big deal.

Seeing such a high volume of ‘instant’ feedback is also very telling. From some already being disappointed with the graphics update (without actually seeing it…), to claiming “no fair” for those who are playing now, if there is an inkling of injustice (real or otherwise), you can bet someone made a thread about it.

It’s also a safe bet that people are going to make “but what about feature X that was promised!?” threads about features that were, in fact, clearly NOT promised for this update. Those same idiots tomorrow will make a thread demanding info on what’s being developed, presumably so they can once again get themselves all confused and over-hyped.

And ultimately, online life will go on. Tomorrow cities will be sieged, mobs will be farmed, and some new FOTM tactic will be discovered, with a slew of threads to follow about “lulz fix it NOW!!!” But for today, it’s 99% ForumFall, and all its jibbering wonder.

Chuck-o-the-day: Jesus turned water into wine. Chuck Norris turned wine into a bad temper and aggravated assault.

(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.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, Patch Notes | 4 Comments