Darkfall "Released"

[ashrik]

4. Have at least 3 sides to the conflict, never just 2. Learn from why DAoC had a good idea here.

I've been seeing this stuff in WAR threads too, and it still doesn't make sense. There's nothing inherent to a 3, 4, 5, 6, ...n sided war that automagically balances the game. It doesn't make any goddamned sense (not to mention that by all accounts, it didn't balance anything) . In a genre plagued by copying ideas without having a clue as to why they worked in the first place, this takes the cake.

If anything, it just serves to scramble the players and put blinders on. When the Dwarves take a pounding, they'll simply have no clue that it's because furrys outnumber them 2 to 1. They'll already be inundated with other enemies

[Mrbloodworth]

A whole slew of videos.

[Venkman]

if you asked WoW Mages if they want to be able to tank and heal, the overall reaction would be "fuck, yeah".

No I wouldn't. Because then I'd need to. And then I wouldn't be casting anymore. So I can just as easily go play a Death Knight.

Archetypes are being painted as limitations. But every system has limitations. Even in Eve, you're not able to do everything at all, as there's not enough time in your life to learn all of the skills UO just limited your potential in particular skills, and players provided the further limitation by min/maxing.

The only real problem I have with Classes is that they force players to make niave choices in the beginning with no way of undoing short of rerolling. Games that tried archetypes/subs (launch EQ2, AoC, DAoC, TR, upcoming Aion) were a good step forward, but you still need a way to respec to the prior major decision point or you're rerolling anyway. The only good way to get around this imho is to created a staged event that allows the player some time with the ultimate version of their character, and include a lot of instruction on how to play it. But nobody's done that and I don't foresee anyone bothering.

[Nebu]

The only real problem I have with Classes is that they force players to make niave choices in the beginning with no way of undoing short of rerolling. Games that tried archetypes/subs (launch EQ2, AoC, DAoC, TR, upcoming Aion) were a good step forward, but you still need a way to respec to the prior major decision point or you're rerolling anyway. The only good way to get around this imho is to created a staged event that allows the player some time with the ultimate version of their character, and include a lot of instruction on how to play it. But nobody's done that and I don't foresee anyone bothering.

This is a step in the right direction, but wouldn't solve the problem of games maintaining the requirement of the holy trinity.  You see people playing purebreads rather than hybrids because they want to be the best at one thing instead of average at many.  Games promote this by rewarding proper group builds.   Why have two people healing when you can have one?  Even with skill based games, the group builds inevitably devolve into groups of specialists.  It's a min-maxxer's paradise.

[Arthur_Parker]

if you asked WoW Mages if they want to be able to tank and heal, the overall reaction would be "fuck, yeah".

No I wouldn't. Because then I'd need to. And then I wouldn't be casting anymore. So I can just as easily go play a Death Knight.

Yeah that's exactly the point, why does Blizzard's first hero class have so much versatility?

[Simond]

if you asked WoW Mages if they want to be able to tank and heal, the overall reaction would be "fuck, yeah".

No I wouldn't. Because then I'd need to. And then I wouldn't be casting anymore. So I can just as easily go play a Death Knight.

Yeah that's exactly the point, why does Blizzard's first hero class have so much versatility?

DKs can tank reasonably well or do adequate DPS (barring one horrifically broken insane DPS talent set-up which will get nerfed sooner or later)
Please note the 'or' in that sentence.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'll note your "or" if you note my "versatility".  I also thought Death Knights could heal to some limited extent.

[Rasix]

Not in any way that would qualify them for those tasty healer spots and their most concentrated healing is self only (blood spec talents and death strike). It's good for soloing elites.

[Draegan]

DK's can tank or dps.
Paladins can tank or heal or dps
Shaman can dps or heal
Warriors can tank or dps
Druids can dps or heal or tank
Priests can heal or dps
Mages/Rogues/Warlocks/Hunters can dps


With the exception of maybe elemental shaman and shadow priests, each spec is viable and requested in any level of game play.

[Azaroth]

Actually I've seen Shadow Priests top DPS charts in 25 man raids, and Elemental Shamans are getting a massive DPS buff in the upcoming patch.

[sidereal]

4. Have at least 3 sides to the conflict, never just 2. Learn from why DAoC had a good idea here.

I've been seeing this stuff in WAR threads too, and it still doesn't make sense. There's nothing inherent to a 3, 4, 5, 6, ...n sided war that automagically balances the game. It doesn't make any goddamned sense (not to mention that by all accounts, it didn't balance anything) . In a genre plagued by copying ideas without having a clue as to why they worked in the first place, this takes the cake.

If anything, it just serves to scramble the players and put blinders on. When the Dwarves take a pounding, they'll simply have no clue that it's because furrys outnumber them 2 to 1. They'll already be inundated with other enemies

Multiple sides can help balance by allowing for alliances to form to stand up to winning factions.  And like many MMO features, designers only consider how it could be good if everyone just plays like they want them to and don't ruminate too much on the potential backfires.  Like, for example, in the absence of any countervailing mechanic it's equally or more likely that factions would rather make an alliance with the winning faction, because winning is better than losing.  And then you actually accelerate the imbalance until you have one superalliance that dominates play and developers are left mouthing something about human nature automagically breaking up alliances while the servers stagnate (Hi Shadowbane).

[IainC]

Back on topic for those who care I got sent a link to this fairly complete roundup of dev quotes. There are no links to the original sources so it's impossible to gauge what is recent stuff and what is old and outdated.

[Slyfeind]

Multiple sides can help balance by allowing for alliances to form to stand up to winning factions.  And like many MMO features, designers only consider how it could be good if everyone just plays like they want them to and don't ruminate too much on the potential backfires.  Like, for example, in the absence of any countervailing mechanic it's equally or more likely that factions would rather make an alliance with the winning faction, because winning is better than losing.  And then you actually accelerate the imbalance until you have one superalliance that dominates play and developers are left mouthing something about human nature automagically breaking up alliances while the servers stagnate (Hi Shadowbane).

That's interesting, because in my DAOC experiences, one side (Albion) dominated the other two, forcing an alliance between Midgard and Hibernia. Nobody ever thought of allying with Albion, because Albion didn't need the alliance.

[IainC]

That's interesting, because in my DAOC experiences, one side (Albion) dominated the other two, forcing an alliance between Midgard and Hibernia. Nobody ever thought of allying with Albion, because Albion didn't need the alliance.

On Euro servers at least, while you are correct in that 'Midbernia' vs Albion was the default state while nothing special was happening, as soon as there was a major raid on, the uninvolved side would always weigh in to take advantage of the defenders being stretched. I can't remember any situations where the uninvolved side helped the defenders in any material way regardless of who was attacking who.

[Signe]

Back on topic for those who care I got sent a link to this fairly complete roundup of dev quotes. There are no links to the original sources so it's impossible to gauge what is recent stuff and what is old and outdated.

I've seen quite a few so-called "new" screens and stuff these last few months or so and a lot of them ended up being identified as old things.  I have to wonder at what seems to be an awfully wide range of differences in graphics in the "new" stuff, too.  Either they are years apart or, perhaps, there is a more mendacious reason for it.  Having said that, the animations remain consistently terrible throughout everything.

[Slyfeind]

On Euro servers at least, while you are correct in that 'Midbernia' vs Albion was the default state while nothing special was happening, as soon as there was a major raid on, the uninvolved side would always weigh in to take advantage of the defenders being stretched. I can't remember any situations where the uninvolved side helped the defenders in any material way regardless of who was attacking who.

Crazy backstabbing Euros! We were always honorable on my server.

... ^_^

[Ratadm]

That's interesting, because in my DAOC experiences, one side (Albion) dominated the other two, forcing an alliance between Midgard and Hibernia. Nobody ever thought of allying with Albion, because Albion didn't need the alliance.

On Euro servers at least, while you are correct in that 'Midbernia' vs Albion was the default state while nothing special was happening, as soon as there was a major raid on, the uninvolved side would always weigh in to take advantage of the defenders being stretched. I can't remember any situations where the uninvolved side helped the defenders in any material way regardless of who was attacking who.

This is how it was on my US server as well.  The funny part is Hibernia was always hilariously incompetent at carrying relics.

[Venkman]

<stuff>

This is a step in the right direction, but wouldn't solve the problem of games maintaining the requirement of the holy trinity.  You see people playing purebreads rather than hybrids because they want to be the best at one thing instead of average at many.  Games promote this by rewarding proper group builds.   Why have two people healing when you can have one?  Even with skill based games, the group builds inevitably devolve into groups of specialists.  It's a min-maxxer's paradise.

Oh, yea, I was only talking about how to get around the problem with uninformed players making lifelong decisions. That has no impact on backing out of a cheat site to play towards a foregone conclusion. But that is going to happen in whatever system is created, as long as there's statistics to base decisions upon

[UnSub]

4. Have at least 3 sides to the conflict, never just 2. Learn from why DAoC had a good idea here.

I've been seeing this stuff in WAR threads too, and it still doesn't make sense. There's nothing inherent to a 3, 4, 5, 6, ...n sided war that automagically balances the game. It doesn't make any goddamned sense (not to mention that by all accounts, it didn't balance anything) . In a genre plagued by copying ideas without having a clue as to why they worked in the first place, this takes the cake.

I'd say that an uneven number of sides works well in low numbers (i.e. 3, 5, 7) because it means that there can be a shift in alliances and there is always a tie breaker. I say "can" not "will" because it depends on the players. If there are player guilds you'd probably get enough of them to always be in some kind of conflict, but you'd also end up with an oligopoly of two or three main guilds, maybe 5 second tier guilds and a ton of also-rans (which worked in EvE, but apparently not in EvE China). Always fixing the number of sides to a set number could help stop one player guild from dominating too much (which apparently worked on some DAOC servers but not others).

However, every side also has to be attractive to play. POTBS has 4 sides (I think) and the Spanish aren't popular to play (I believe) so those players constantly get hammered by the other sides, which in turn means they aren't popular to play. Some kind of balancing mechanism needs to go in to help those up from the bottom, and it can't just be xp rates or more gold because when you are outnumbered you need raw power (I don't believe "better tactics" work in MMOs that don't have one-shot kills*) to help you. WAR's Dogs of War seemed like a good idea, but of course it wasn't implemented.

There is also the possibility that players will reach a degree of balance and elect to all be in alliance with each other. This is the worst thing possible for a PvP game. Utopia sucks! Bring on the chaos! So every side needs something to defend and a reason to attack.

* this would be an interesting mechanic - you don't have enough players in your realm so all characters get certain time-limited one-shot kill abilities - but it'd be ripe for exploitation and could even promote the idea that every side should have as few players as possible. You'd also have to put certain zones / attacking off-limits to those killed during these battles to stop those killed by a one-shot just running back to the fight and reinforcing the zerg.

[Mrbloodworth]

New (?) screen shots.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/1416/darkfall1sh5.jpg
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/4715/darkfall2av4.jpg
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/76/darkfall4ap1.jpg
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/474/darkfall5vt2.jpg
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/3421/darkfall3ei2.jpg
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/1088/darkfall7yu0.jpg
http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/3698/darkfall8lt6.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4797/darkfall9pt1.jpg

[SnakeCharmer]

Fugly.

[Nebu]

This is the game that will change the face of MMO pvp.  I'm certain of it!

[kildorn]

Those are ancient shots, right?

Because there isn't a node actually called "Mining Spawn Rock" at this point in beta, right?

[Mrbloodworth]

They are apparently new. But i did get them off the internets....who knows.


220 ping!

[Nonentity]

http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/1088/darkfall7yu0.jpg

The female orcs make my ugly female race sense tingle. In a good way.

[Vehementi]

Those are ancient shots, right?

Because there isn't a node actually called "Mining Spawn Rock" at this point in beta, right?

priorities

[sidereal]

Immersion is for loser pansy carebear losers.

[kildorn]

Those are ancient shots, right?

Because there isn't a node actually called "Mining Spawn Rock" at this point in beta, right?

priorities

Right now, polish is priority #30 behind Functionality #1-29, I can totally buy.

But that's usually months before release.

[Vehementi]

Those are ancient shots, right?

Because there isn't a node actually called "Mining Spawn Rock" at this point in beta, right?

priorities

Right now, polish is priority #30 behind Functionality #1-29, I can totally buy.

But that's usually months before release.

priorities within 'polish'

[Azaroth]

 

[kildorn]

Those are ancient shots, right?

Because there isn't a node actually called "Mining Spawn Rock" at this point in beta, right?

priorities

Right now, polish is priority #30 behind Functionality #1-29, I can totally buy.

But that's usually months before release.

priorities within 'polish'

polishing text strings comes far behind polishing turds?

[Draegan]

The screen shot of the orc character creation screen actually didn't look to bad.  All the rest looks terribad.

[Koyochi]

you'd also end up with an oligopoly of two or three main guilds, maybe 5 second tier guilds and a ton of also-rans (which worked in EvE, but apparently not in EvE China).

What happened in Eve China then ? googling about it only gives old stories about the launch, can't find anything about the evolution of alliances there.

[IainC]

As I understand it the Chinese Eve players just love them some 0.0 mining so they're locked up tight in a universal NAP. Pirates and wars are restricted to lowsec.

[Slyfeind]

Oh wow, they're going with browns and greys and it looks so realistic in tone and NOBODY HAS EVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER FUCKING DONE THAT BEFORE OMG ITS TEH WOW KILLER BECAUSE IT'S REALLY GRITTY DARKDARKREAL