Darkfall "Released"

[Venkman]

Eve has a big world. Biggest of them all in fact. And an entire game mechanic that gives reason to do what players did as emergent behavior in AC1.

But "big world" by itself is no more a killer feature than "lots of classes". It's not the feature, but how you use it.

[Draegan]

The fact people here are still calling it Darkfall and Darkfail is a wonder all to itself.

[HaemishM]

AC had a large world and it was a clear feature, people made specific zones (usually delimited by the closest lifestone) their home and hanged out/defended it against intruders and people who tried to use that zone's best leveling spot. The size of the map gave everyone a chance to survive without getting steamrolled in every corner, some runs where epic (direlands) and you could make travelling easier with portal magic.

Good that you talked about a game that was #3 (as in sucking hind tit) when there were only 3 MMOG's on the planet. This is not a good example.

SB has runegates to speed the travelling process, and there are no "empty zones" every zone in between cities has a PvE area, its not barren. The issue in that case was the rampart sb.exe and client issues the game had, not the big world.

LOLWUT? Shadowbane's world was the very definition of BARREN. There were tiny PVE lakes in between vast stretches of empty land where you could build cities. There weren't even mobs in the empty areas, just places to plop down trees of life. The client issues only exacerbated the problem that even with runegates, the summon mechanic and open NPC cities, people still would put up open trees just to be able to teleport around the world quicker.

Edit: In the small world that is Warhammer, scenarios are popular because they are the fastest way to level solo and at 40 are the best way to gain renown rank

This is the other reason scenarios were so popular over oRVR. The main reason the scenario concept was so popular was because it was easy as hell to get to. That they were the fastest ways to level was the reason certain scenarios were more popular than others (Tor Anroc over everything else).

[tmp]

Why are we still following or talking about this again? I'm confused.

I have no defense; but it's good low-brow entertainment and i'm easily amused...

[Arthur_Parker]

Good that you talked about a game that was #3 (as in sucking hind tit) when there were only 3 MMOG's on the planet. This is not a good example.

AC1 was pretty good.

[Iniquity]

This'll be my final post on Darkfall until release, I guess.  Nobody's convincing anyone of anything either way.

You call it a competitor. I suppose that's a little cute.

Why are you taking it so personally though? Are you on the payroll for Aventurine or whatever they're called now? Also, since when is a large world such a great bullet point? Large and good are two very separate things.

You sound like a vault poster. I'm not defending Iain, but back off before I den you, which would be ironic.

Taking the points in order:

1.  Yeah, it's not really a competitor in the same sense that EQ1 isn't really a competitor for WoW.  But at the same time, wouldn't you be a just a -little- taken aback if the devs for WoW shat on Teppy's work on ATITD in a public forum?  I'm not a shrinking violet about these things, but it violently offends my sense of MMO-dev propriety, in the same sense that there's supposed to be honor among thieves, or omertà with the mafia.

The clusterfuck that WAR ended up being (in gameplay terms, I know it's reasonably profitable) just adds another 'mote and beam' aspect to it.

2.  As for why I seem to take it personally, I've got no stake in the game, I'm not in the beta, and whether I buy DF at release will depend on the reviews I see in places like this.  But nearly every game at F13 seems to get some basic sort of grudging, "well, it might not suck" acknowledgment, no matter if it's the most rehashed KMMO diku, whereas Darkfall gets relegated to the DNF/Dawn pile.  Seems unfair somehow.  And sticking up for the Plucky Underdog makes me feel warm and fuzzy 

3.  As for a large world, I'll repeat what I wrote earlier:

a thought on world size:  The size and scaling of your world is one more system that should integrate into your overall design.  FFA PvP worlds become more forgiving the larger you make them, since they enable lone wolves to carve out an existence for themselves on their own, rather than a small world like WoW where everybody basically knows the whole lay of the land.  A FFA PvP version of WoW would fall quickly to the catasses for precisely this reason.  A band who can strike out in secret and build a niche for themselves far away from the well-traveled paths can pose an asymmetrical threat to larger, better-known enemies; incessant lightning hit-and-run raids, etc.  On the flip-side, if you're the big kid on the block, infiltrating such a group and figuring out The Location of the Rebels' Secret Base becomes an objective.  It leads to a much more dynamic world, where your gameplay has periods of calm despite the FFA ruleset that then contrast the periods of outright war.  It helps to differentiate such a world from the sport PvP that everyone else is doing.

Since douchemore mentioned AC1, we can take that as an example, since Darktide is the closest thing to Darkfall yet released.  The large world gave different factions with very different playstyles a bit of room to breathe with one another.  Especially for the first year or so, when a couple of 'hidden towns' weren't on the world map, things weren't very well mapped out, and there was a 'here there be dragons' sense of real exploration.  The things that make a MMO world "good", in the traditional sense, actually weakened AC1's FFA PVP over time as they were added in to strengthen the PvE game; more and more content, player housing, etc. just spread out the playerbase further and took them out of the world map.  AC's best PVP came in the era when the game had the least of we'd traditionally call 'content', as opposed to dozens and dozens of patches later with thousands of dungeons, added land masses, safe zones, etc.

If anything, from the AC1 experience, I'd say the less features/mechanics are hard-coded -- but rather, left up to emergent behavior -- the more interesting the game will be.  The competitive dynamics of EVE were far too hard-coded for my liking.

You might prefer sticking rusty forks in your eyes to playing Darktide Part 2, but there are people out there who'd enjoy it, and those people are Darkfall's target audience.  And they're not all asshats; there were a fair number of anti-PKs, roleplayers, lone-wolf types with no hardcoded philosophy, etc. who played on Darktide and gave the world depth and flavor.  At least in the beginning.  They left a few years in, but ironically, what drove them off wasn't the consequences of death and losing, but the eventual lessening of consequences due to PvE-oriented game changes that undermined player-enforced justice and norms.  The sense of a 'harsh world' actually encouraged more anti-PK activity than when they made the game easier.

TL;DR version:  A large, more procedurally generated world, a-la AC, is more in tune with what the mechanics of full-world PvP demand than a small, hand-crafted world like WAR or WoW.  This is part of why DAoC's attempt at full-world PvP failed miserably, and why even a full-world PvP server for WAR wouldn't satisfy the sort of people who are likely to be interested in Darkfall.

[Nebu]

This is part of why DAoC's attempt at full-world PvP failed miserably, and why even a full-world PvP server for WAR wouldn't satisfy the sort of people who are likely to be interested in Darkfall.

I'm going to make you a cash bet.  I'll bet that DAoC generated more cash (inflation adjusted) than Darkfall ever will. 

You're the only person here that thinks DAoC was a miserable failure.  You may not like the game, that's fine... but calling it a failure is flat out wrong.   

[Von Douchemore]

Good that you talked about a game that was #3 (as in sucking hind tit) when there were only 3 MMOG's on the planet. This is not a good example.

Is it relevant? AC1 was a success and the world was huge. period.

LOLWUT? Shadowbane's world was the very definition of BARREN. There were tiny PVE lakes in between vast stretches of empty land where you could build cities. There weren't even mobs in the empty areas, just places to plop down trees of life. The client issues only exacerbated the problem that even with runegates, the summon mechanic and open NPC cities, people still would put up open trees just to be able to teleport around the world quicker.

Well, sure. Once every city is built there are no more barren spaces, its PvE zone/City/PvE zone/Open City/PvE Zone, duh. It seems you only played this game for two days, and i wouldn't blame you for being impatient.

This is the other reason scenarios were so popular over oRVR. The main reason the scenario concept was so popular was because it was easy as hell to get to. That they were the fastest ways to level was the reason certain scenarios were more popular than others (Tor Anroc over everything else).

Granted, its retardedly easy to play scenarios, push button, play. Still scenarios are the cancer of WAR, the game depends heavily on them, they are the best place for everything. Thats why so many people are quitting in disgust, they came for O-RvR, not crappy ass scenarios (Mythic didn't even recreate the good instanced battleground DAoC had, Thridanki , that prepared you for RvR once you hitted 40-50)where 50% are "grab the thing and run" and the other 50% is domination mode. I believe they are already looking into ways of screwing up the new "Darkness Falls".

Back on topic, stop hating and show some love for a game that is doing something different instead of trying to appeal to the WoW playerbase. You never know they might pull it off, either way i'm pretty sure most people here will buy it for their collection of vapor legends come true.  

and +1 to Iniquity  

[Vehementi]

This is part of why DAoC's attempt at full-world PvP failed miserably, and why even a full-world PvP server for WAR wouldn't satisfy the sort of people who are likely to be interested in Darkfall.

I'm going to make you a cash bet.  I'll bet that DAoC generated more cash (inflation adjusted) than Darkfall ever will. 

You're the only person here that thinks DAoC was a miserable failure.  You may not like the game, that's fine... but calling it a failure is flat out wrong.   

He said full world pvp, I think he's referring to popularity/quality of the FFA pvp DAOC servers (mordred/andred?  I forget), not whether the game made money or not.

[Iniquity]

This is part of why DAoC's attempt at full-world PvP failed miserably, and why even a full-world PvP server for WAR wouldn't satisfy the sort of people who are likely to be interested in Darkfall.

I'm going to make you a cash bet.  I'll bet that DAoC generated more cash (inflation adjusted) than Darkfall ever will. 

You're the only person here that thinks DAoC was a miserable failure.  You may not like the game, that's fine... but calling it a failure is flat out wrong.   

Just so we're clear, when I said 'DAoC's attempt at full-world PvP' was a failure, I was referring to the Mordred and Andred servers, which were DAoC's equivalent of AC Darktide.  They closed one of 'em, and the other one is pretty sparsely populated from what I hear.  Standard DAoC isn't full-world PvP, and I wasn't calling DAoC as a whole a failure.

I'd still hate to play it, but it's not a failure in the business sense.

[Nebu]

Ok, I'll buy that.  I played on Andred as my primary server for a year or so and found that it was a pretty lousy implementation of world pvp as well.  There were a few things that could have really turned the server around, but the resources to carry out the changes just weren't there. 

Sorry for the confusion.  I think my inner DAoC fanboi seeps out every once in a while.   

[veredus]

Still scenarios are the cancer of WAR

Actually I would say MJ is the cancer of WAR. Scenarios were the drug keeping the cancer riddled patient from dyeing quite as fast is all.

[schild]

2.  As for why I seem to take it personally, I've got no stake in the game, I'm not in the beta, and whether I buy DF at release will depend on the reviews I see in places like this.  But nearly every game at F13 seems to get some basic sort of grudging, "well, it might not suck" acknowledgment, no matter if it's the most rehashed KMMO diku, whereas Darkfall gets relegated to the DNF/Dawn pile.  Seems unfair somehow.  And sticking up for the Plucky Underdog makes me feel warm and fuzzy

lol

Plucky underdog. Right. EQ2 is something that can be considered the plucky underdog. Or Eve. But Darkfall? Your definition of plucky underdog is wack.

[Iniquity]

Ok, I'll buy that.  I played on Andred as my primary server for a year or so and found that it was a pretty lousy implementation of world pvp as well.  There were a few things that could have really turned the server around, but the resources to carry out the changes just weren't there. 

Sorry for the confusion.  I think my inner DAoC fanboi seeps out every once in a while.   

  Since we're on the topic, what were the lessons learned from DAoC's failure to implement world PvP well that you think a future world PvP game/server could learn from (i.e. things that were systemic rather than my-class-and-talent-trees-were-imba)?

Also, does anyone here play EQ2's full-PvP server?  Heard about its release, haven't read a thing about it since then.

[Iniquity]

lol

Plucky underdog. Right. EQ2 is something that can be considered the plucky underdog. Or Eve. But Darkfall? Your definition of plucky underdog is wack.

[schild]

Yes, it's basically a dog that needs to be put down (to save it from suffering, publicly and horrifically).

[K9]

No, that'd be the runt of the litter.

The underdog is the one that's behind, but has a chance to achieve something. What Darkfall is liable to achieve is up for discussion, although the "most unsurprising fail award 2008" seems like a shoe-in.

[Iniquity]

Since we've established that EQ2 qualifies for plucky underdog status, anyone want to give us a Cliff's Notes on how its full-world PvP server is doing?

[Venkman]

EQ2 is not a plucky underdog. They are the descendant of an old empire from a time when the world was much smaller. There's only one game post-EQ1 that actually achieved the goal of being "EQ1 for the rest of us".

DAoC was not a failure. Individual server rulesets didn't work, but they had the money and resources to try that at all. Most games don't get that sort of opportunity.

At the same time, DAoC in no way proved anything about RvR nor World PvP that is useful in the modern business sense. The game began to work for the players who were left something like five years after it launched. That doesn't convert to a launch-day proposition of a successor concept. Like, as we're seeing with WAR for example.

This is the same thing with AC1:DT and pre-Renaissance UO. These are concepts evolved out of the genre because the genre has gotten too huge for anyone to spend much brainpower trying to figure out how to deliver monthly fun to the few hundred people who like this very specific type of all-kill/all-loot/all-the-time game.

And someone's going to mention Eve again, so I'll head that off: really deep fans of Eve are not going to jump to another game in the genre, because Eve is it's own genre, is the only game in it, and there too took years to achieve that status (and a nice bump from SWG:NGE as well).

[schild]

Being the child of a Holy Roman Empire doesn't exclude you from being the plucky underdog. It snuck in before WoW and crapped itself due to being a mess of design and bad performance and has been slowly fighting for market share since then. Hartsman turned it from hilarious trap into a plucky underdog by slowly improving it into what is probably one of, if not the, best MMOGs on the market right now and it's still nowhere near catching up but the population does, indeed, grow. It's the definition of a plucky underdog. Thing refuses to give up.

EQ1 was in an apple world whereas EQ2 exists in the world of oranges.

Edit: Iniquity, who I thought was leaving this thread as per an earlier post, seems to be under the impression that World PVP outside of Eve is going to be properly done sometime soon and achieve a modicum of popularity besides the 1% of the fruitbags here who think it works well. The population of MMOGers that are willing to give World PVP a shot in it's current state of affairs is laughably small and mostly cloistered to a couple AoC servers and Eve. Really, Darkfall doesn't stand a chance in the fucking world and he needs to stop comparing world PVP in games that aren't designed for it to games that are - even if the design of the latter is laughably bad and the former was a design process shoehorned in after live to make people like him shut the fuck up.

[tolakram]

Full pvp without consequences will always fail in my opinion, and fail fast.  The comment about DAoC, as i read it, only referred to the dred servers which had no consequence pvp.  Nobody likes to log into a game and get killed by some punk who thinks it's fun just because they got the levels and the equipment first.

Now for some reason I had fun on Mordred hiding from the griefers and trying to level up my 1 stealth minstrel.  What did I do once I was a few levels above most of the newbies?  Killed newbies!

[Iniquity]

"Last post about Darkfall" doesn't mean "last post about worldy PvP and games like EQ2/AC/DAoC that have tried it in some form".  So I'll sidestep the argument about whether there's an audience for Darkfall or not, and just ask if any of the DAoC 'dred players / EQ2 whatstheservercalled players have any lessons from those servers that are broadly applicable.

Tolakram:  Do you think the negatives you experienced are world-PvP issues, per se, or issues with DAoC's implementation specifically?

How gankable you are by the high levels depends on a number of things:

-Size of the world, number of places for you to run off to as a newbie where you wouldn't be easily found.
-'Escape' mechanics in combat -- how easily can you flee a higher-level player?  How easily can one person flee an equally-leveled group?  DAoC's heavy emphasis on mezzes, roots, stuns, and crowd control seems especially relevant here.
-The degree of influence that loot/levels have on combat outcomes (as opposed to strategy, preparedness, and twitch skill)

None of these are 'set in stone' factors.  It seems to me like the problems you had are more indicative of How Not To Construct a Ruleset For A World-PvP Game than an inevitable outcome.

[Falconeer]

Since we've established that EQ2 qualifies for plucky underdog status, anyone want to give us a Cliff's Notes on how its full-world PvP server is doing?

EQ2 full pvp server is meaningless. I played on it for a long while and it was fun... briefly. You did loot coins in your opponents backpack (usually none) and it was, of course, faction based. Two factions at start, three (with renegades) after a while.
An afterthought entertaining but pointless twist, bound to insignificance in a 100% PvE game.
If with "full world" you are referring to some FFA (factionless) PvP server then I am just talking out of my ass... never heard of anything like it. But what's the point anyway? EQ2 is definitely item-centric and class matchup + items >>>>> player skill.

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.

What is not working, is the lack of consequences upon death. You die, you respawn. That's it. Killer get some PvP XP to eventually buy better items but victim loses nothing.
If Conan had a kick in the nuts with each PvP death, it would be all Darkfall is trying to be, but 150k times better. Would it attract more pvp oldschooler? yeah! Would that lose them 75% of their playerbase? still yeah. Would it be a good deal for Funcom? Fuck no.
There's definitely a market for those games. It's just NOT large enough to justify heavy funding. And without heavy funding 99 out of 100 times your MMO is going to be shit. With heavy funding though you can shift the odds at 95 out of 100.

Finally, while I love the concept of Darkfall and I'd love to play their design documents (always did), you must be so naive to think it has even a single chance of being a good decent MMORPG. You (and the other romantic dreamers on this thread) are in denial, about the industry, the market, the technicalities. It won't just fail, it will be unplayable.

[tolakram]

Tolakram:  Do you think the negatives you experienced are world-PvP issues, per se, or issues with DAoC's implementation specifically?

World pvp in general.  But I had fun with the minstrel because I had this magic button (stealth) that made me invisible from a distance.  Kind of like a pvp flag, which for me made it a much more controlled pvp environment.

Darkfall supposedly has some kind of pvp system that might discourage griefing?  Does anyone really know or believe what they say?

DAoC's heavy emphasis on mezzes, roots, stuns, and crowd control seems especially relevant here.

That did not work because resist rates on spells in DAOC is set to 85% and then a level penalty applied plus a duration penalty.  In other words if you cast a 30 second mez on an opponent 20 levels higher then you it would have a <35% chance of landing with a duration around 10 seconds.

There's definitely a market for those games. It's just NOT large enough to justify heavy funding.

You call 26 people a market.    

[mutantmagnet]

The population of MMOGers that are willing to give World PVP a shot in it's current state of affairs is laughably small and mostly cloistered to a couple AoC servers and Eve. Really, Darkfall doesn't stand a chance in the fucking world and he needs to stop comparing world PVP in games that aren't designed for it to games that are - even if the design of the latter is laughably bad and the former was a design process shoehorned in after live to make people like him shut the fuck up.

You underestimate the curiosity factor. The darkfall registered member count tripled from 50k to 150k because of the 17 minute movie the devs released. It hasn't grown much since then but it's a testament how different the influx of new forumgoers are. Darkfall has also gotten consistent attention on the WoW forums whenever a big update comes up.

I don't know if I'm cut out for Darkfall myself, let alone anyone else who hasn't played a game like it; but we won't know until we see how the devs embraced Bartle's point about killer types feeding off of the rest of the player types.

Darkfall supposedly has some kind of pvp system that might discourage griefing?  Does anyone really know or believe what they say?

IMO their alignment system isn't about discouraging griefing as much as it is a form of social control. Basically the system tracks your behavior when attacking friends and foes to your race. As you become more evil you become locked out of quests and become kill on site for guards at major cities and at the few guard stattions scattered over Agon. But the guards only care about their race and allies. Ork guards will kill evil MAhirim and Orks while they'll kill any of the four races regardless of their alignment.

Because of this setup players are encouraged to look more favorably on members of their own race and allies as people they shouldn't attack indiscriminately.

I think the devs have more tricks up their sleeves to promote unity. For example the one race that is hated by everyone the Alfar will have their capitol city undersiege by a slave rebellion. Considering how tough NPCs are based on the reports, the Alfar players will have to band together to complete this large scale quests meant to to end the rebellion itself. That type of pressure may make them a more unified group so they can better handle being the faction without any allies because they start out as a more cohesive force.

[Falconeer]

You underestimate the curiosity factor. The darkfall registered member count tripled from 50k to 150k because of the 17 minute movie the devs released. It hasn't grown much since then but it's a testament how

Dammit man. Stop making my eyes roll so hard. I'm in pain.

Seriously, sounds like this is your second MMO. So full of hopes, ignoring reality. Just wanting to believe.

[Triforcer]

I think the devs have more tricks up their sleeves to promote unity. For example the one race that is hated by everyone the Alfar will have their capitol city undersiege by a slave rebellion. Considering how tough NPCs are based on the reports, the Alfar players will have to band together to complete this large scale quests meant to to end the rebellion itself. That type of pressure may make them a more unified group so they can better handle being the faction without any allies because they start out as a more cohesive force.

How will one person form a unified group with himself? 

[Arthur_Parker]

IMO their alignment system isn't about discouraging griefing as much as it is a form of social control. Basically the system tracks your behavior when attacking friends and foes to your race. As you become more evil you become locked out of quests and become kill on site for guards at major cities and at the few guard stattions scattered over Agon. But the guards only care about their race and allies. Ork guards will kill evil MAhirim and Orks while they'll kill any of the four races regardless of their alignment.

There is no alignment system, no social control, the system doesn't track your behaviour, you can't become more evil.  There are no quests, no guards, no cities and no races.  Because it hasn't been released.  All responses to this continuing DArkfall fanboy drivel, on forums everywhere, should be "that's nice, when is it released?".  Because none of you DArkfall numpties has any answer better than the answer you would give in 2003, remember 2003?  That's when beta was meant to start.

Release it, then we can laugh talk about it.

[LC]

Actually the first beta and release date given were way back in 2001.

[Draegan]

Actually the first beta and release date given were way back in 2001.

Your avatar is appropriate for this thread.

[Arthur_Parker]

Actually the first beta and release date given were way back in 2001.

[mutantmagnet]

You underestimate the curiosity factor. The darkfall registered member count tripled from 50k to 150k because of the 17 minute movie the devs released. It hasn't grown much since then but it's a testament how

Dammit man. Stop making my eyes roll so hard. I'm in pain.

Seriously, sounds like this is your second MMO. So full of hopes, ignoring reality. Just wanting to believe.

If I was ignoring reality I wouldn't say

I don't know if I'm cut out for Darkfall myself, let alone anyone else who hasn't played a game like it; but we won't know until we see how the devs embraced Bartle's point about killer types feeding off of the rest of the player types.

I'm aware of the pitfalls of past pvp games. Why aren't you aware of the pitfalls of your inability to read and put things in context? You would save yourself the trouble of repeating something we partially agree with. It feels like I should put a disclaimer next to all of my caveats.

Just so this post isn't a complete waste of space the devs have brought in a couple of guys to write up a preview of the game based on what they've seen after they flew to Greece.

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.

[Signe]

I just looked at the Italian coverage.  It has screenshots that they allegedly made although the screenshots are all stamped with Darkfall's copyright in the corner.  Dodgy.  Also, it looks like ass:



 
Although the wood bits don't look too awful in this one.  But that face!!!   

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

[Arthur_Parker]

Also, it looks like ass:

True story.  That's why I capitialise the 2nd letter everytime I say DArkfall.

[Draegan]

Looks like Vanguard-Lite.

And their font sucks.