Another amazing FreeRealms record!

Posted on June 3, 2009 by SynCaine

“First” concert record for Free Realms. The string of amazing press releases continues, which is at least a good source of entertainment thanks to Free Realms. And just like DarkFall is the place for all those basement-dwelling sociopaths, at least now all the pedophiles have a home in Free Realms, and it’s FREE!

In other news, I downloaded The Sims 3 last night. Initial impression: Would it not be awesome if someone made a DarkFall mod using the Sims 3 engine? (The RMT shop is painful, but after 2 hours the actual game is as expected, quality Sims ‘action’)

Posted in Darkfall Online, FreeRealms, Mass Media, Random, Rant, Site update | 1 Comment

Phasing out ‘multiplayer’ in MMOs

Posted on June 3, 2009 by SynCaine

Tobold has a post up today talking about direct and indirect social interactions in MMO games. It’s a good read with interesting points, but is a somewhat odd topic to be discussing in a genre with Massive and Multiplayer in its name. Or at least, one would think it would be.

Simple test: How much of your current MMO would still be possible if you were the only player on the server? What would remain unchanged, what would be different, and what would be impossible?

Now, create a list of your personal top 5 MMO moments.

For me at least, my top 5 are impossible without other players, and actually have little to do with game mechanics and far more with who was there. In addition to that, what I look for in an MMO is directly related to other players (PvP, working economy/crafting, group PvE, player-driven stories), and while I still partake and enjoy the more solo aspects (solo PvE, harvesting or other character development activities), I only enjoy them in the context of the virtual world and the competition/environment it brings. My time in DarkFall is reduced currently not because the game itself changed, but because soon we will be moving to a new server and what happens between now and then ‘does not matter’. It mattered when I knew my actions today would influence future events both for myself and others. It’s just pixels, but when those pixels ‘count’, it’s a lot more motivating and fun to continue, which for me is the huge separation between the MMO genre and non-persistent games.

To get back on point, it’s both disappointing and understandable that the mass market section of the MMO genre is moving towards the ‘single player online game’, where logging in is just a formality (and excuse to charge $15 a month or open an RMT shop), and the majority of a players actions are done within his/her own little bubble.

It’s disappointing because the ‘it’ moments in an MMO are not based around cleverly scripted instances or great quest content, but rather in sharing whatever accomplishment you and others have worked for and finally reaching that goal together. Traditionally the ‘game’ part of an MMO has been mediocre at best (hence the term ‘grind’ and not ‘gameplay’), with the obvious selling point being that this mediocrity is performed in a living breathing world, and in that setting it goes from mediocre to (if you are a fan of MMOs) as good a gaming experience as you will find. Remove the world aspect, and is it any wonder that the mediocrity begins to show? And while not always the case, why is it that the more time spent trying to improve the ‘game’ aspect of an MMO, the more the ‘world’ aspect is pushed aside or minimized? Is it as simple as saying they are mutually exclusive?

The ‘understandable’ comes in when you look at the mass market and what is required to appeal to it. It has to be ‘accessible’, which means catering to as many people as possible. Or in other words, no focusing on one particular group at the expense of others, and simply trying to gravitate as close as possible to the happy middle. Raiding in WoW was not ‘accessible’ because only those with time to understand and work towards a higher level in the game could experience the content. Of course, in order to make raiding ‘accessible’, Blizzard had to lower the bar, and in turn remove the aspect that the previous group actually enjoyed, the challenge. As other games chase the mass market, one area identified as being a potential ‘problem’ was the reliance on others in a virtual world. As a dev you can’t control other players, and make everyone play nice to get the most out of that dungeon you designed or to player that battleground how you had hoped it would be played. Working with others is a challenge (hence it’s value in the work force), and it’s a challenge ‘the masses’ would rather see removed. In order for the MMO genre to cater to ‘the masses’, MMO devs must deal with the challenge of other players; the current solution seems to be to remove them.

At what point does it become impossible to identify a casual MMO and a single player game with an RMT shop attached to it?

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, Mass Media, MMO design, PvP, World of Warcraft | 24 Comments

Fans of hype, fans of gaming.

Posted on June 2, 2009 by SynCaine

Hype in the gaming industry is a form of entertainment all its own, and history has shown that plenty of people LOVE getting wrapped up in the pre-release fanfare. This is not only something that consumes people in their search for information; it can also be big business for those who cater to that crowd.

Remember Diablo II pre-release? The super-slow info leaks from Blizzard, including releasing teaser or outright misleading screenshots? The countless fan sites that literally broke down every single screenshot, dev post, or movie frame by frame? How many mega-sites launched years before D2 was released, feeding on that info frenzy and no doubt making a pretty penny along the way? If you don’t remember it, just follow along as the same thing happens with Diablo III.

That frenzy did not hurt Diablo because, well, Diablo was an amazing game. For all its hype, it lived up to it and more. No backlash from the super fans, and everyone following the game got to play something great, perhaps even enhanced due to all their ‘insider’ knowledge and being able to finally experience what they had been waiting for all those months/years.

Pre-release and post-release are two different phases of a games life cycle, and success in either can lead to some profit, while success in both is not only rare, but also exponentially rewarding. If your hype machine succeeds in selling a ton of people on a pile of crap, and that crap had a modest dev budget, you can still turn a profit even though your actual game failed to ultimately deliver (AoC for example). At the same time, a quality MMO will EVENTUALLY get the attention it deserves; even if it takes a while for word of mouth to spread (EVE is perhaps the best example). And of course the genre’s most famous example, WoW, delivered on both a successful hype machine and a quality game (since ruined by carebears, obviously). The MMO graveyard is littered with failed hype AND failed game examples.

And just like the games themselves have different phases, so do fans. Some people only play the pre-release hype game, jumping from one game to the next, always feeding on the possibility that the next game is going to be ‘the one’, moving on from a previous game a month or so after release because it did not live up to their own self-created vision of what that game should be. Others not only ignore all pre-release hype, but give any MMO a good 3-6 months of post-release time before getting interested, knowing that what is promised or even delivered on day one is NOT going to be the same game 3-6 months later. Between the two extremes is the gray area, where fans might pick a title or two to follow pre-release due to a particular interest, but generally don’t engage in the long, drawn out process of following a project years before release and gobbling up any and all scraps of information.

At the end of the day, regardless of how effective the hype machine was, or how many superfan dreams get crushed at release, a quality title will attract its buyers, and more importantly, deliver a quality gaming experience for its target audience. After all, we are GAMING fans, and not news/hype fans… right?

Posted in Age of Conan, beta, Diablo 3, EVE Online, Mass Media, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 8 Comments

Puzzle Kingdoms and Sid Meier’s Railroad fill the DF void.

Posted on June 1, 2009 by SynCaine

With some time opened up due to playing DarkFall for PvP only, I gotten around to playing some other games. It’s been a while since I’ve played a quality turn based strategy game (something like Heroes of Might and Magic), yet checking both Steam and Direct2Drive.com, it seems that drought continues in the industry. King’ Bounty for $20 was an option, but lukewarm reviews drove me away for now (but hey, no one cares about those metacritic rating, right? The one who determine who gets ‘top rated’ standing on Steam/D2D? Yea, zero effect on sales I’m sure).

Before I get into what I did purchase and play, I want to briefly touch on Steam and D2D, as I always hear people talking about how great Steam is, yet I never hear mention of D2D, even though both are very similar IMO. Both run specials which drop games to very attractive prices, both have similar layouts that are easy to navigate and make finding what you are looking for quick, both have a large product offering, and both offer fast downloads for delivery. The one knock I have against Steam is that it needs to run in the background whenever you play a game off it, even a single player game. Most of the time this is a non-issue, but when my internet was acting up, Steam had a real tough time getting itself in offline mode, and a few times ‘thought’ it was running when it was not, making actually using it impossible without a comp restart. D2D on the other hand is a straight download, and all the game codes you need when installing are all stored on the website, making the process a very simple copy/paste job only needed once. After that the game starts up as if you had bought it in a store, and you never have to deal with putting a CD in.

Choice of digital delivery aside, the two games I have been playing recently are Puzzle Kingdom (PK) and Sid Meier’s Railroads (RR). Both games are very much on the casual side, both were cheap ($20 for PK, $10 for RR), PK was off Steam, RR I got from D2D during their 50% off 2K games promotion. I’ve had PK for a few weeks now, while I got RR Saturday.

Puzzle Kingdom is of course the sequel to Puzzle Quest, a game I really enjoyed. It’s similar enough in its base structure of matching colors, but changes up what you power up and how you win each fight. It’s not a ‘bad’ game, but it’s terribly easy even compared to Puzzle Quest. So easy that about halfway through I stopped really trying and just started plowing through the fights to progress the story, which is itself awful and even makes you as the hero look like an ass in certain cut scenes (unintentionally). Oddly enough the most difficult puzzles can be found on the ‘side’ items, getting additional troops or spells/items, while the main quest battles are often laughably easy. PK’s main issue (IMO of course) is that it offers you TOO many options, and so falls into the easy trap of allowing you to create near insta-win combos of troops/spells/items. Another major downside is the lack of multiplayer, short of a thrown together and very poor hotseat option. The ‘minigame’ option is also just each puzzle style offered as a standalone game, but again this is lacking as you get more than enough of each type during the main game, and nothing special is done to spice up the puzzles. It’s tough to really recommend PK, especially when compared to Puzzle Quest, as it just feels like a rushed cash-in on the success of its predecessor. Unless you are dying for exactly what it offers, I would wait for a price cut to $10 or even $5, and pick it up as a quick diversion.

Sid Meier’s Railroads is a game I was interested in when it original came out, but after some time with the demo, never got around to actually purchasing. At $10 on D2D, it was an easy grab, and initially I though it was going to be a quick play and forget as it seemed rather easy/pointless at the lower and mid difficulty settings (2/10 score at this point using the EG scale). I’m happy with it currently however once I turned it up to the highest difficulty setting. Going so high up the difficulty setting was a bit surprising for me considering Sid’s other games, especially Civilization, are a solid challenge at the mid levels, and are downright scary/cheap at the highest settings. Once the challenge issue was addressed, the true details of RR come out and you realize behind the cartoony (but good quality) graphics and setting is a decently deep strategy game that rewards forward thinking and takes advantage when you make a mistake. For whatever reason, I love when the AI makes a move to block you right as you were about to make a similar move to block it, as it just gives the game a real feeling of having to play your best and not get lazy. Games of RR are generally a manageable hour or two, and the random map generator so far has done a good job of creating a challenging layout, due to the major challenge of the game being how and where you place your rails in relation to your opponent’s rails. So far (5-6 hours maybe?) it’s been a great title to fill the gaming void until DarkFall launches it’s NA server and I go back to more or less full time with that game.

I also re-subbed our (fiancé and I) two WAR accounts and played some RvR for about an hour or so. It’s going to take some time to re-adjust to the ‘meatgrinder’ style of PvP that is WAR compared to DF, but that should also provide some good filler until NA-1, not to mention a good chance to reconnect again with some old carebear friends.

Posted in Civilization Series, Darkfall Online, PvP, Site update, Warhammer Online | 7 Comments

Urge to play… fading

Posted on May 29, 2009 by SynCaine

I’ve stated all along that one of my favorite aspects of playing an MMO is the continual progression, both from an individual perspective and for the game overall. I like knowing that as I play, I continue to get stronger or learn to play better, and that this ‘counts’ because it happens in a world filled with other characters doing the same.

WoW stopped being worthwhile for me in part because each expansion is a complete reset, and it’s that knowledge that helped to drive me away. In a similar vein, I’m having trouble staying motivated to log into DarkFall as often now, knowing that I will be re-rolling when the US-1 server is released. Knowing what you are doing does not ‘count’ puts a completely different light on a lot of activities, and at least for me, is a good reminder of why exactly I do love the genre.

Take mining for instance. It’s technically a boring activity in DarkFall, as all it requires is finding a node and left-clicking once to start, stopping only when you are out of stamina or feel the need to move on. When it ‘counts’, I have no problem with mining, and actually enjoy it. It’s a way to build wealth, further your crafting, gain some skill/stat points, chat with guildmates, and while the activity itself is simple, knowing you have to stay sharp to avoid PKs keeps it from being a click and walk away activity. It’s fun finding a good spot to mine, one with good resources but not frequented by PKs. That in itself is almost a mini-game. But when it stops counting, when you don’t care about the skill/stat gain, you don’t need the wealth it brings, and your concern for PKs drops to zero, all that’s left is that technically boring activity of a bar filling up and ore being placed in your bag.

So I remove harvesting from my list of DarkFall activities, along with any crafting that I won’t directly use myself, and also trading, since I currently have everything I might need in my bank for the next 1-2 months. What’s left is exploring and PvP. PvP is still fun because the actual combat is great. Missing is that ‘building up’ aspect from gaining gear from a kill, but even without that PvP is a lot of fun, and I’m still getting better at it from a player-skill perspective. The only downside to this is that I’m affected by the memory crash more than most, which can literally get you killed in PvP. Assuming that gets fixed soon, I don’t see myself stopping my regular PvP trips anytime before US-1.

Exploring is also fun, especially given how expansive Agon is, and how many interesting little nooks exist. Considering I’ll likely be rolling a different race, exploring those areas and getting comfortable for US-1 is a nice goal to work towards. Exploring naturally leads to PvP as well, so that’s a plus. The memory crash puts a damper on exploring, especially since it happens more often when traveling long distances, and because crashing while mounted can cost you that mount if you crash in the wrong spot.

So yea, the announcement that I was waiting for, the upcoming release of the US-1 server, has in fact slowed my time in DarkFall, or at least changed up my day-to-day gameplay. When you remove the ‘it counts’ factor from an MMO activity, you remove a major part of why I do it, and if what’s left is in itself not much fun, it limits my options. I am getting close to finishing Puzzle Kingdoms though (early analysis: way too easy), and should have a post up about that at some point.

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design, PvP | 27 Comments

Big DarkFall update, Aventurine-style of course

Posted on May 28, 2009 by SynCaine

It’s not often (ever?) that Aventurine gives it’s fans a preview of what’s ahead for everyone’s favorite and 100% perfect MMO, Darkfall, yet we got just that yesterday from Tasos. Or at least, we got a long post with a lot of words, and a whole bunch of ‘more stuff’ announced. Let’s see if we can break down the update, and see if any real meat was included.

The first section addressed the RAMPANT (ask Youtube or any ForumFaller) cheating and hacking that plagues DarkFall. It’s more or less a repeat of their previous stance, with the only new addition being that they will start banning geometry exploiters and looting script users. Here is the part I found interesting:

Unattended macroing and unattended use of autorun and swimming against obstacles are also prohibited. We have taken great measures to limit macroing, to reward the players who are actually playing the game and allow them to catch up easily. We will continue working on making macroing and its effects irrelevant in Darkfall.

They state auto-running into a wall is prohibited, but left off the ‘and will result in a ban’ that was included in all the other statements. Odd, but my guess is they want some players to settle into the ‘new’ rules before whipping out the ban stick. Otherwise, if you started banning everyone running into a wall today, the world would be a very empty place. Baby steps and all that. They honestly should just remove those skills and be done with it, as everyone has 100 run/sprint/swim/riding anyway.

Next on the list, the North America server. Before DF was released Aventurine said they would allow NA players to transfer off the EU server once the NA server was up, in part no doubt to get some NA players into the game and not have them all waiting for the NA server before dropping some cash. Under normal circumstances this would be fine, but DarkFall had/has some early issues with character skill exploits, and bringing over those enhanced characters won’t be ‘fair’ to all the new players. Add to that the fact that skill gain is also now harder or easier (depending on your playstyle and the skill in question), and it’s hard to compare a 1st month character to someone starting fresh when the NA server goes up. Here is the meat of the section:

Character transfer/cloning will become available with a significant delay (months) and possible further restrictions. This concerns only the characters without any of their possessions. More on this at a later date

Obviously the two big questions are the length of the delay and what exactly the ‘further restrictions’ might be. Already confirmed is the fact that the transfer will be a naked transfer, so all items are lost. It’s hard to say what a good length for the delay would be without knowing the other restrictions. Lets say a hard cap on skills gets implemented between now and the NA launch, and the cap is restrictive enough that a new player can reach it within 2-3 months of ‘normal’ play. In that scenario, a 3 month delay will be more than enough time to get everyone on more even ground, especially since the transfers will be coming over naked into a world already occupied by established guilds with gear and cities. It’s also possible the transfer could include some kind of skill modification, let’s say all skills are capped at 75 points, so any skill at 100 is reduced. How long does the delay have to be with that factor? I’ve already decided to reroll come NA-1 (more on that in a later post), but the exact details of the transfer will likely sway a great deal of others on their decision.

Plans for more servers are also underway. Announcements will be made as needed.

Who was it that said if you are not opening up more servers 6 months after launch you are failing? (yay reference to that quote, +1 blog score) I’m curious though, if they open up an EU-2 server, just how many people would reroll for a chance to get away from the rigormax characters?

We’ve performed a complete overhaul of the account management system and things are running much smoother than they used to. We have increased our capacity repeatedly and we’ve been trying to keep the Darkfall shop open as much as possible since last week. This has been increasingly difficult to maintain as demand remains high. This despite the fact that there is still no “Buy Darkfall” button anywhere and our release has been limited to the Darkfall community.
Our number one concern is the quality of the experience for our existing users. We don’t want to create any problems by allowing too many new users in. This is why we have no boxes in the market, why we haven’t been promoting the game, why our new site isn’t up yet, why we don’t offer a free trial, why we don’t offer more payment options etc.

We understand that Darkfall’s soft launch is unorthodox, but we are working hard to change all that while maintaining the best possible experience for our existing users.

Now, if you only play ForumFall you take the above as “lulz they can’t update their website, DF sux!”, but if you have spent more time than a EuroGamer reviewer in DarkFall, you know exactly how important population balance is, especially on the high-end. The server constantly crashing is not going to help anyone have a good time, and while in the end DarkFall WON’T be the game for most people, tourists have a way of ruining a launch, and I’ll once again give Aventurine props for planning ahead and reducing their influx to a trickle.

Next is the meat (or lack of) of the update, and what Aventurine has coming down the pipe for DarkFall. Let’s look at each point separately.

Imminent massive optimizations to further improve gameplay, massive battles and sieges

Fix the sound-created slowdown, and 90% of the optimization will be realized. Without sound enabled, DarkFall actually runs amazingly well even with all it’s graphics turned on during a massive siege. With sound enabled, you get crippled down to 5 FPS. I’m sure they are aware of the issue, and hopefully it’s one that’s addressed soon. The other 9.9% of the work needed is a fix for the memory error crash, which while not usually gamebreaking, it’s quite annoying when chasing or being chased in PvP. Dying because your client crashed really puts a damper on the experience.

Improving the newbie experience, making the transition to Darkfall smoother and lowering the learning curve

Set our course to “Follow in EVE’s footsteps”. Smart move.

Continuously adding polish to the game

Disappointed by this one, I was hoping they would remove polish. Seriously, wtf is the point of the above? We all assume you will polish the game as you go. Next they will release how many characters have been created in the last 18.4 minutes.

Substantial improvements to the graphics

You know people are going to roast them for the use of ‘substantial’ when a patch comes out and changes something minor (or even major, because even that won’t be ‘substantial’ enough for everyone) As someone who has never been bothered with the graphics of DarkFall (other than how it looks on Youtube, fix that!), so long as the update does not hinder client performance, I don’t care all that much.

Large content updates

This next to “adding polish” really brings a wealth of information for all of us, thank you.

Massive feature updates

Add this to the list above.

Further improvements to the economy

Player run vendors please, Blizzard it and copy/paste UO on this one.

Massive improvements to the solo and the small group experience

If by this they mean “90% of the worlds mobs will no longer require a huge group, or dubious abuse of the AI”, then yes please. PvP should be the challenge of DarkFall, we don’t need more than half the mobs in the game being able to easily solo a player in a ‘fair’ fight. Sure keep a few mobs tough, but the majority should be doable in a small (3-4) man group, and larger (6-10) groups should be able to take down 99% of all mobs in a straight up fight. Reducing mob hp/damage would also allow players to actually go out and gain combat skill gain by fighting mobs. Crazy, I know!

More PvP diversity and options

I was hoping they would keep PvP for white people only. I blame Obama.

Substantial improvements to PvE

Raiding yo! Hopefully they can get the instances working and not keep everyone locked out, or have to bring this down a month after its release due to poor planning. Luckily they have the massive resources and glacial update schedule to accomplish this…

And finally, the update links a bunch of media coverage about the game. Oddly no link is provided to that amazingly entertaining EuroGamer ‘review’, although a certain kids table is indeed linked. Someone needs to send a note to Tasos and let him know that that tourist has moved on, and won’t be back until (LotD release + 2 weeks + 1 month on X new shiny). Funny that Tasos would EuroGamer his own update and only skim a site he linked, unless somewhere along the line he agrees that DF is ‘beyond repair’ and a ‘bad game’, but I have my doubts about that.

Posted in Darkfall Online, Mass Media, MMO design, Patch Notes, PvP | 8 Comments

DarkFall: US server population (non)issue

Posted on May 27, 2009 by SynCaine

With the all-but-confirmed US-1 (or NA-1) server being geared up for release, many in the DarkFall (and ForumFall) community are wondering if the player base can support two separate servers, using the current in-game population as a barometer. The all too common “if Aventurine can’t fill EU-1, what will happen with the US-1 split?” argument often finds its way into any thread on the topic.

What I don’t see mentioned often is the current state of DarkFall in terms of availability, advertising, and overall ‘buzz’ generated by Aventurine. For starters, it’s only very recently that DarkFall has become available 24/7 at the online store; previously all buyers had to play ‘is the shop up?’ and hope they were lucky enough to have the shop load for them during the availability window. While that release strategy worked well to keep the in-game population under control and prevent first-month flooding, it also kept a lot of potential buyers out, as not everyone is going to be crazy enough to camp a website for a chance to buy a game. Yes the fanatics did it, but even in a niche like the one DarkFall is filling, only a percentage are willing to go THAT far to play.

Beyond the shop going 24/7, Aventurines own website promoting the game has yet to receive an update, and if someone is only passing by they might assume DarkFall is still in beta. How many more potential customers could a simple “DarkFall is out, click here to buy” button attract? Furthermore, a full update to the website, including some kind of “What’s already happened in-game” information could also draw new players to the game. EVE is famous for this, as anytime a big event happens it gets a ton of publicity and the stories draw fresh eyes to the games possibilities. Already DarkFall has seen it’s first major event (the fall of Hyperion) and some player-driven story published on the official site would really help to show people exactly what has drawn the current players into the game, distancing it a bit from the ‘Fantasy FPS’ image many have of DarkFall.

Going one step further, how about some damn advertising? We all know internet advertising is cheap these days, so when will we see a few DarkFall banner ads on Massively or other MMO sites? When a small MMO blog like this site here still gets “Is DarkFall out” in the comments, you know a ton of potential customers are not even aware of your games status or even existence. Sure it’s a niche product, so you don’t need Mr. T advertising ganking noobs on TV for DarkFall, but I’m sure many players that DO fall into the DarkFall niche might not be aware of the game.

It’s also a bit foolish to discount all of the players who are interested in DarkFall but are simply waiting for the North American release, afraid of bad pings to the EU server or simply not wanting to bother playing on a temporary server, especially since the full details of a transfer, if there even is one, are unknown. Before DarkFall went live on EU-1, Aventurine announced that a North American server would become available at a later date, so it’s not surprising some fans decided to wait.

Edit: Oh, and right as I finish writing this, Tasos gives the community an update and echo’s some of my statements. Now if only he had not linked to a site which dubbed his game ‘beyond repair’, but hey, even DarkFall news releases contain some bugs.

Posted in Darkfall Online, Mass Media, MMO design, Patch Notes | 7 Comments

DarkFall: NA-1 and quick in-game update.

Posted on May 26, 2009 by SynCaine

Rumor has it the DarkFall NA-1 server is coming in June. Consider the release history for DarkFall overall, would anyone be surprised if it’s a bit late? Granted setting up hardware and launching an MMO are two very different things, but as a company you first have to deliver on a few promises before people take you on your word (Mythic has bought a lot of credit in this regard with the timing and delivery of WAR updates). No news on how exactly NA-1 will be done in terms of the transfer. Will it be a full transfer, partial, delayed, or a blank slate? Hopefully more on this from Aventurine soon, as I know a good amount of people are waiting on the sidelines until this server goes live. With the shop going online 24/7 recently, a good influx of new players have entered the game, and I believe the launch of NA-1 will bring in another wave.

As far as in-game activities go, RL has been a bit busy for me recently, so my online time has been reduced a bit. On Saturday Inquisition took part in TheMerc’s siege of Mar Shrall (The Goons capital city), but I personally did not see much of the action as our group was on shard defense duty, and no real attempt was made against it. Not going to break down the whole siege, but the end result was that TheMerc’s were not able to bring down the city’s clan stone to 0% before the attack window expired, resulting in a technical draw (but really a lose for TheMercs, since the 180k used to initiate the challenge is lost)

This week should be interesting however, as Inquisition has stirred up some new wars (more PvP targets), and you never know what our new friends are going to get involved with next.

Posted in Darkfall Online | 7 Comments

DarkFall: 3 month review

Posted on May 21, 2009 by SynCaine

Edit: My newer, one year review of DarkFall can be found here.

DarkFall has been out just shy of three months now, and for me it’s been the most interesting three months of any MMO since UO, for a variety of factor. Going in with low expectations, finding an amazing guild to play with, and actually playing an MMO that is designed from the ground up to be all about impact PvP all contribute to a great three months.

The low expectations part has been well covered, but I think it’s important to remember what people were saying back prior to release. DarkFall is a game that was called vaporware throughout much of its development, all the way until the very day it went live. It’s the game many predicted would be a repeat of Shadowbane from a technical perspective, and it’s the game many claimed would fundamentally not work from a design perspective. It was low on my radar because after all these years following the MMO genre, I’ve learned not to get myself hyped up about website details, screenshots, or bullet-point lists like some little school girl waiting for Miley Cyrus at the mall. No one actually playing DarkFall will claim its perfect, or even at 75% of what it can be, but for anyone looking for a player-skill based impact PvP game, it’s hard to argue that DarkFall has not delivered on the promise to cater to that niche with a worthwhile product.

Most MMOs outside of the growing ‘solo hero’ segment depend on player communities to draw and keep players going. Anyone who has ever been in a solid, close-knit guild knows whatever game they are playing is infinitely more fun because of the people around you, which can make a good game great, or keep you playing something average just for the people. Inquisition is a great group of guys to game with, both because of their overall in-game skill and the leadership’s ability to maintain a good balance of serious yet laid-back gaming. We are not a dominant, all powergamer guild like TheMercs, but we are far from the casual, non-factor guilds that spring up and die after the first defeat. Given my current playstyle and gaming time, this fits me perfectly, and has added a ton of enjoyment to DarkFall.

Outside of my clan, I actually really enjoy the DarkFall community as a whole. Beyond the ForumFall aspect that non-players love to point at as a negative is a solid group of people who all love the same thing; good PvP. As the three months have progressed we have seen the niche start to establish itself, as players who can’t handle or don’t like impact PvP quit or go inactive, and those looking for exactly that rise up to be major players. In today’s MMO market you don’t need sheep among the wolves; you just have to provide enough tools for the wolves to keep them entertained. In three months, DarkFall has slowly started to shed its sheep, and continues to cater to the wolves as they go at it. As most MMO fans know, it’s not about how many other solo-heroes play the game on x server, but about the people you actually play with or against on a daily basis that matters.

Finally the game itself is above and beyond what I thought it would be. The graphics are fine (unless all you know is screenshots or youtube), most of the technology works until you get a zerg vs zerg battle, and for as complex a system as PvP is in Darkfall, balance is actually very decent. Compared to other MMOs, DarkFall has made good progress in refining its formula over the last three months, especially when you factor in the size and resources of the developer. While the outgoing sheep cry for Trammel before they go inactive, those actually playing know very well what areas need work and what needs to change to make DarkFall a better game. Beyond that, the player base is still in its infancy in terms of understanding the game, as just last night the server saw the first player-built warhulk in action. As the players become settled, more complex strategies and tools will be used, further enhancing the player experience. Just like EVE took some time to settle in and for player run empires to establish themselves, DarkFall is in that phase now. Expecting ships and warhulks to be common in the first months is a fool’s request, as is the thought that the first month of DarkFall looks anything like the third, or that what is happening now will remain unchanged in the next three. Unlike a themepark, a sandbox is always shifting, and so far DarkFall is shaping up nicely.

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design, PvP, Site update | 23 Comments

DarkFall: New home, new friends

Posted on May 20, 2009 by SynCaine

Having worked out a deal with TheMercs alliance, we now have access to the city they took from Mortis Consortium. Most of our members are bound at the old NPC city TheMercs worked out of, which is just a short trip south of their new home. The details of our agreement are not public knowledge so I can’t go into it here, but I can talk about how they run their city/alliance in general.

Very simply, it’s ruled with an iron fist and everyone is under a ‘one and done’ mistake policy. Everyone is expected to carry their weight, and anyone slacking is quickly replaced. When you are inside the city, you just ‘feel’ it’s not the place to screw around or act like an asshat. It’s both amazingly imposing and at the same time incredibly inspiring. These guys are pros, and when you see the machine from the inside, it’s easy to see why TheMercs are as efficient and successful as they are.

A simple example: In DarkFall leaving your mount out in a city usually results in someone jumping on it within a few seconds. If you are lucky, it’s just someone messing around and they jump off shortly after, rather then take off. With TheMercs, you can leave a mount out and come back an hour later to find it in the same spot, untouched. From an outsiders perspective this might seem like such a silly and minor point, but when you factor in the internet fuckwad theory and the anonymity it provides, it’s an amazing accomplishment in leadership and control.

Being associated with one of the more hated yet feared alliances will surely bring a lot of PvP our way, both defending the city and accepting contracts from others. Now that the foundry is up in the city, and TheMercs having created a bunch of warhulks, I’m sure some serious sieging is in the works. Good times ahead.

Posted in Darkfall Online, PvP | 27 Comments