Darkfall "Released"

[ghost]

I noticed a "you have gathered 0 of 4 goblin axes" in the event log in the first picture.......................

Doesn't seem that interesting or new to me.

[TheCastle]

Second shot...
Ah yes planer mapped wooden struts. Looks great from one axis only!
edit: on closer inspection I see some other visual glitches implying that the renderer was either having problems displaying textures correctly or the artist simply did a poor job unwrapping the models.

Third shot....
Check out the horribly out of scale shadowmap with the naked bloody male wood elf with... with.. wtf is that a sheathed sword coming out of his crotch?

[mutantmagnet]

. wtf is that a sheathed sword coming out of his crotch?

I personally thought that was placed deliberately...

[Mrbloodworth]

Looks like Vanguard-Lite.

And their font sucks.

Vanguards art direction and Technical execution of art assets was far superior. The art doesn't look that bad in darkfall, but just from the screen shots i can see some very basic mistakes.

[Draegan]

You're on crack.  Vanguard's art and technical execution was ass.

[Goreschach]

I noticed a "you have gathered 0 of 4 goblin axes" in the event log in the first picture.......................

Doesn't seem that interesting or new to me.

Yeah, but these are r_Goblin's. How many r_Goblins have you killed in an MMO before?

[Mrbloodworth]

You're on crack.  Vanguard's art and technical execution was ass.

Negative.

[Falconeer]

DISCLAIMER: Shame they didn't have the press actually test the beta from Italy just to show the game works outside of the devs studio.

mmorpgitalia.it is a joke. Take a stratic monkey, shake it with 1/3 of a mmorpg.com retard, 1/3 of a 12 years old and 1/3 of an uninformed fascist thief (!) and you have a vague idea of the "fun" you could get there if you could read Italian.

Seriously, where I live has nothing to do with the fact that you are ignoring the simplicity of: Darkfall has zero chances. That's why you are in denial.

P.S: Who said I didn't try the game?

[Draegan]

You're on crack.  Vanguard's art and technical execution was ass.

Negative.

Then explain yourself, all I saw was repeated use of textures, terribly designed space, shiny plastic graphics and poorly designed dungeons.

Not to mention Chunking, and CTDs and stuttering, but that may be someone elses fault.

[Signe]

You're on crack.  Vanguard's art and technical execution was ass.

Negative.

Then explain yourself, all I saw was repeated use of textures, terribly designed space, shiny plastic graphics and poorly designed dungeons.

Not to mention Chunking, and CTDs and stuttering, but that may be someone elses fault.

You didn't mention the palette!  Don't forget the palette!

[Draegan]

Your avatar still creeps me out.

[Signe]

I especially feel like my avatar today.  I thought I'd feel all comfy and cozy with the snow and no place to go and nothing to do, but I feel like pulling legs off of bugs.  Or babies.  Even baby bugs.

[Draegan]

I heard kittens make a cut noise when you pull out their whiskers.

[TheCastle]

Something can be far superior to something else and still be ass btw.

I think what those screen shots show is driver issues or an overheating video card so maybe its not terribly fair to compare the graphics in those shots to anything.

[Signe]

I think it's fair to compare them to ASS! 

[Venkman]

DISCLAIMER: Shame they didn't have the press actually test the beta from Italy just to show the game works outside of the devs studio.

You'd think this'd make one wonder...

[TheCastle]

I think it's fair to compare them to ASS! 

hehehe
Fair enough

Does it strike anyone else that the underscore was visible in r_Goblin?
I use underscores in file names but not text that appears on screen...

edit: ah alright I am done poking at those images... Its not helping anything.. this is meaningless.

[K9]

I don't know what this is supposed to be. 

Apparently Elves do not have nipples.

[Iniquity]

Conan is probably what you should look at for your case study. FFA PVP servers are doing great (in Conan's terms) for so many different reasons. First, they are truly FFA. NO factions, so you can whack whoever isn't in your guild. Second, the world is large enough but teleporters send you everywhere. And it's twitchy enough, and definitely based on playerskill.

Sorry, but from what I've played of it (up to level 50 or so), this is not an accurate assessment of Conan (though the problems you note below are correct).

The world isn't nearly large enough, and there are tons of safe areas -- it's more like WoW's PvP servers than anything truly FFA.  Way too much emphasis on progression through differently-leveled zones of PvE content, too.

I also don't think there's nearly enough twitch; correct me if I'm wrong, but if someone shoots an arrow at me, running out of the way won't dodge it?

[Falconeer]

Conan is probably what you should look at for your case study. FFA PVP servers are doing great (in Conan's terms) for so many different reasons. First, they are truly FFA. NO factions, so you can whack whoever isn't in your guild. Second, the world is large enough but teleporters send you everywhere. And it's twitchy enough, and definitely based on playerskill.

Sorry, but from what I've played of it (up to level 50 or so), this is not an accurate assessment of Conan (though the problems you note below are correct).

The world isn't nearly large enough, and there are tons of safe areas -- it's more like WoW's PvP servers than anything truly FFA.  Way too much emphasis on progression through differently-leveled zones of PvE content, too.

I also don't think there's nearly enough twitch; correct me if I'm wrong, but if someone shoots an arrow at me, running out of the way won't dodge it?

Conan is probably different from what you remember, on a PVP server. No safezones but the three main cities, which is 5% of the gameworld. Plus all classes can hide, which means ambushing a lot, UO style. And about the twitch, you can't avoid arrows but why shoud you be able to? That isn't possible unless you are Jackie Chan or an Asheron's Call character. The twitch is definitely there but it can't be seriously noticed in PvE or in sucky standing clueless PvP.
Zone tiers? Who cares? In Conan you can beat a player 20 levels higher than you if you are that good. Naked. Progression is 80 levels wide but strength in AoC is in numbers and playerskills, not levels or items. Me and my friends used to band together at level 40 in packs of 6 - 10 lowbie characters whacking every level 80 on our path. We were able to take up to 4 of them together. Mostly thanks to the aforementioned game mehcanics and those players playing Conan as WoW: failing.

Point being: you can play it wrong, basing your experience on your pve leveling, then you won't find it twitchy and you will lose. To have a chance in Conan pvp, you have to find out what everyone else is doing better than you. And that is so many degrees of twitching, mostly.

That said, it's not God of War. Just the twitchiest PvP MMORPG around (if it can survive the night of the gutting...).
Real problem with Conan is you need a veteran, or a motivated group, to find out that sekrit hidden layer of deepness of combat and PvP. If you craft a MMORPG which changes lots of 10 years old rules, you have to do your best to explain the players what is different and why. Thoroughly.
I still go by my old idea that Conan gimped itself by not pushing on the PvP pedal since day 1 (or doing it wrong, resspad slaughtering anyone?), letting so many players apply their old rules and leaving in disappointment because the game was unable to follow them there.


Darkfall? In a dream world, I'd be playing the hell out of it. In this world? Simply too ambitious for their money.

[Iniquity]

Conan is probably different from what you remember, on a PVP server. No safezones but the three main cities, which is 5% of the gameworld.

For what it's worth, I've only played the game on a PvP server.  And there *are* more safe zones than that, because there are plenty of instances, and instances are de-facto safe zones, where you can do whatever you want unmolested.

And about the twitch, you can't avoid arrows but why shoud you be able to? That isn't possible unless you are Jackie Chan or an Asheron's Call character.

Or... any FPS ever, pretty much.  Tabula Rasa fell down hard on this one, too.  AC1 had its serious flaws, but it managed to incorporate some of these basic mechanics nearly a decade ago.  You'd think such mechanics would be standard by now for a PVP-oriented MMO.  (Charge-up jumping, too, and the player's general 'bounciness' -- AC1's physics engine is probably the single best I've seen in an MMO, as opposed to the current standard where everyone runs like molasses and jumping feels more like an emote than a gameplay mechanic)

Zone tiers? Who cares? In Conan you can beat a player 20 levels higher than you if you are that good. Naked. Progression is 80 levels wide but strength in AoC is in numbers and playerskills, not levels or items. Me and my friends used to band together at level 40 in packs of 6 - 10 lowbie characters whacking every level 80 on our path. We were able to take up to 4 of them together. Mostly thanks to the aforementioned game mehcanics and those players playing Conan as WoW: failing.

Point being: you can play it wrong, basing your experience on your pve leveling, then you won't find it twitchy and you will lose. To have a chance in Conan pvp, you have to find out what everyone else is doing better than you. And that is so many degrees of twitching, mostly.

Again, I only played it on a PvP server, with my emphasis on PvP.  I only play full- or nearly full-world PvP servers/games if I can help it, it wasn't like Conan was some harsh world existence.  They've actually removed a lot of the twitch, by nerfing jousting.  Zone tiers matter because it influences where and how different groups/levels of player find each other, and thus the emergent PvP behavior.  It's the same Small World model that WoW has, and it suffers from the same problems.  Making the cities into safe-zones is especially bad in a world like this; it kills the one major point of convergence for all level ranges.

The problem with Conan isn't that it's too different, it's that it's more of the same.  Of the dozen or so PvPer friends I know in RL who started playing with me, none have stuck around.

[Zzulo]

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=XX4jLw5oM1c

oh god the animations

[SnakeCharmer]

That's awful. 

[Xerapis]

Egads, what was wrong with that woman's legs?

That was atrocious. Hideous. Quite possibly vangardiffic.

[Wasted]

Its like they where made with the Spore Creature creator.

[Von Douchemore]

<- Does not care about shiny graphics.


It actually looks a lot better than the 15 minute gameplay trailer they released in October, since when have graphics kept people in a MMO? Look at AoC 

[Venkman]

The graphics weren't terrible. The animation of her running sucked. I suspect they didn't bother putting any leg armor on her for the demo assuming people will not be able to pull their eyes away from her bum. Freakin' amateur hour here.

[tmp]

I suspect they didn't bother putting any leg armor on her for the demo assuming people will not be able to pull their eyes away from her bum.

Might explain the quality of animation right there. Hard to animate something one does not see.

[Jayce]

It actually looks a lot better than the 15 minute gameplay trailer they released in October, since when have graphics kept people in a MMO? Look at AoC 

A certain base level is good though, so as not to distract with how bad it is.

Also, if it's amateur hour in the graphics area, why not others?

[Signe]

I don't need perfectly perfect graphics to keep me in a game but I'd want something better than that!  It was really horrible.  Her legs moved funny and her ass didn't move at all!  Her ass was ass! 

[UnSub]

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=XX4jLw5oM1c

oh god the animations

Have g-string, will travel ... like a Thunderbird.

[SnakeCharmer]

<- Does not care about shiny graphics.

Bullshit.  It's cliche to say it, but it's bullshit. 

People want the entire package.

[Venkman]

WoW has shiny graphics. Far Cry 2 has shiny graphics. Both work in their respective forms because within their respective engines, everything is self-consistent.

Darkfall made the typical mistake of trying to do old school "realistic" 3D. Unless you've got the money, talent and time to do that, you'll only end up with a game where something that's not working is painfully obvious. In this case it's the animations.

[Von Douchemore]

Bullshit.  It's cliche to say it, but it's bullshit. 

People want the entire package.

That goes without saying, ok, maybe i can rephrase it.

To me, graphics are one of the last factors taken in consideration for a MMO of this type. Until recently i played SB. There's tons of people out there playing UO and UO free shards, people playing AC1, EQ1, Lineage 1 (millions), etc.

Have you seen L1 graphics?

[Venkman]

That's the point though. None of those games tried to be anything more than they had the ability to create. Oh, and they all launched years ago, at a time when just having the game playable at all was still worthy of award.

Have you seen L2 graphics? 

(spoilered because it's a big image)