Darkfall "Released"

[Chinchilla]

So to continue my story for those that are curious. After he attacks me with arrows and I them walk up and we start fighting a little. He is more blocking than anything else and isn't fighting back. I eventually get little tired of hitting him using my newbie 2h sword and instead I go off to harvest my own ore and a vein that is eye ... More later. Interrupted again.

[Nija]

The hell is wrong with you? Put it in notepad.

[Chinchilla]

The hell is wrong with you? Put it in notepad.

Girlfriend keeps interrupting me. I have been typing this on my IPhone while she plays slots or Roulette at the casino but each time she has had to go or something. She has won some pretty decent cash though. I'll continue it and post it all as one msg. This broken up stuff is annoying.

[Brogarn]

 

[Ghambit]

 

[Rasix]

The hell is wrong with you? Put it in notepad.

Girlfriend keeps interrupting me. I have been typing this on my IPhone while she plays slots or Roulette at the casino but each time she has had to go or something. She has won some pretty decent cash though. I'll continue it and post it all as one msg. This broken up stuff is annoying.

The hell is wrong with you?

[Chinchilla]

Didn't mean broken up as we are broken up.  Meant it as that the message/post being broken up is annoying.

[Stabs]

That's a relief. We were on the edge of our seats here. Really.

[K9]

This reminds me of those bash quotes where someone posts something like "wow, my house is on fire".

[Speedy Cerviche]

Uhg they really need to hurry up with this expansion. They had some major technical hurdles with some of the engine tweaks, so it's been delayed since it's original ETA in July. People can live with that since no one wants some buggy pos released, but the game is definitely stagnating with basically no updates since when there was a major game balance patch mid-June which has proven to not be very successful over the long term (nerfed AOE nuke spamming mages & mounted combat, and replaced it with overpowered insta-hit ray spell bursting which also added a new min/maxer grind to get all 7 rays high), and the last new content patch was at the beginning of April, it was fairly minimal too.

The game has a lot of changes planned for the next 6 months that it really needs, but these technical delays (supposedly they are in their final testing now) for months really have the population stagnating. A month ago my alliance would have 45-60 players online at peak on a good night, now we are down to 20-30.

AV is really at a critical juncture here. It's been a very long summer between lack of patching between June and now, poor dev communication, June balance changes that blunted some of the dynamism of high level PvP combat, and network/hardware problems on both the Euro and American servers, resulting in the active population levels noticibly suffering. The good news the players who left are still fans who will come back once they see positive results and the game is still very solid at it's core and oozes potential. Now AV needs to bring it to the next level out of it's arguably current betaish state, and need to deliver some very solid balance and content expansions in the next 4 months, starting with a major xpac in the next 2 weeks.

[Draegan]

I don't think you should be surprised at all that.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Well, they are doing it properly by making sure everything works and it is a positive addition to the game, lots of games botch this sort of major expansion (Eve players dont sound thrilled with CCP's latest offerings). It is just tough to wait and play the game through these delays while your buddies are checking out in the meantime.

[WayAbvPar]

They need to hurry. I have NHL 11 and Civ V clamoring for attention already, and FIFA 11 comes out next week. I am going to have a hard time justifying $15 a month for a game I log in to afk swim a couple of times a week.

[Chinchilla]

So give me your opinion on this gaming rid I put together.  Seriously considering ordering it.  Going to order from IBuyPower because I don't have the time nor really want to bother with tech supporting my own stuff and they come with it for 3 years included.  So what you guys think?

Back2School Intel X58 Special Case ( NZXT Tempest EVO Gaming Case - Black )

Case Lighting ( None )

iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction ( None )

iBUYPOWER Labs - Internal Expansion ( None )

Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 950 Processor (4x 3.06GHz/8MB L3 Cache) )

iBUYPOWER PowerDrive ( None )

Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1366] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan )

Memory ( 6 GB [2 GB X3] DDR3-1600 - A-DATA Gaming Series )

Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 - 1GB - Single Card )

Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by ATI or NVIDIA )

Motherboard ( [SLI] ASUS P6X58D-E )

Motherboard USB / SATA Interface ( Motherboard default USB / SATA Interface )

Power Supply ( 750 Watt -- Corsair CMPSU-750TX )

Primary Hard Drive ( 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

Data Hard Drive ( None )

Optical Drive ( 24X Sony Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )

2nd Optical Drive ( None )

Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )

Meter Display ( None )

Sound Card ( Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE )

Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )

Keyboard ( iBUYPOWER USB Keyboard - Black )

Monitor ( None )

2nd Monitor ( None )

Speaker System ( None )

Power Protection ( None )

Headset ( None )

Video Camera ( None )

Advanced Build Options ( Tuniq TX-2 High Performance Thermal Compound - The best interface between your CPU and the heatsinks )

Warranty ( Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support )

Rush Service ( Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days )

[Chinchilla]

The above spec is $1,300.  The original was $1,600.  Are the changes worthwhile to lower the price?

My original setup was this...


Back2School Intel X58 Special Case ( Antec Nine Hundred Two Gaming Case - Black )

Case Lighting ( None )

iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction ( None )

iBUYPOWER Labs - Internal Expansion ( None )

Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 950 Processor (4x 3.06GHz/8MB L3 Cache) )

iBUYPOWER PowerDrive ( None )

Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1366] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan )

Memory ( 6 GB [2 GB X3] DDR3-1600 - A-DATA Gaming Series )

Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 - 1GB - SLI Mode (Dual Cards) )

Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by ATI or NVIDIA )

Motherboard ( [SLI] ASUS Sabertooth X58 )

Motherboard USB / SATA Interface ( Motherboard default USB / SATA Interface )

Power Supply ( 750 Watt -- Corsair CMPSU-750TX )

Primary Hard Drive ( 30 GB Kingston SSDNow V Series MLC SSD - Single Drive )

Data Hard Drive ( 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

Optical Drive ( 24X Sony Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )

2nd Optical Drive ( None )

Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )
Meter Display ( None )

Sound Card ( Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE )

Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )

Monitor ( None )

2nd Monitor ( None )

Speaker System ( None )

Power Protection ( None )

Headset ( None )

Video Camera ( None )

Advanced Build Options ( Tuniq TX-2 High Performance Thermal Compound - The best interface between your CPU and the heatsinks )

Warranty ( Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support )
Rush Service ( Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days )


Sub Total: $1,642.00

[Rendakor]

We have a thread for this. 

[Rasix]

Here too? Jesus fucking christ.

The hell is wrong with you?

[Speedy Cerviche]

Not a hardware expert or anything but I bought an iBuypower 937i a few months ago and it runs DF perfectly.


http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5395929&Sku=I455-93700

[Chinchilla]

Here too? Jesus fucking christ.

The hell is wrong with you?

I posted it here first, but figured since no one looks in here it wouldn't be noticed.  That "thread" for this isn't all that great.  Which thread is that because the oen I posted it in is from another poster and not clearly labeled as "all PC questions or builds go here".  No one really answers much and what the conversatinos are all about is about something else.

[tgr]

Well, they are doing it properly by making sure everything works and it is a positive addition to the game, lots of games botch this sort of major expansion (Eve players dont sound thrilled with CCP's latest offerings). It is just tough to wait and play the game through these delays while your buddies are checking out in the meantime.

The main problems we've had with the last major expansions were that CCP made the SOV system suck absolute ass to attack, and they made the whole "attacking" (or for a long while even just "travelling") also suck ass. I haven't seen much bitching about it the last month or so, so I suppose they've finally fixed the worst issues.

[WayAbvPar]

Expansion set for Tuesday

Hope this breathes some life into the game. Doesn't sound like they addressed the grind much, which is really a shame.

[Nebu]

Hope this breathes some life into the game. Doesn't sound like they addressed the grind much, which is really a shame stupid.

If they removed the grind, I know a decent number of DAoC/WAR players that would hop on the bandwagon.  Apparently the devs don't want new players.

[Draegan]

Are there some cliffnotes on what's changing?

[pxib]

If they removed the grind, I know a decent number of DAoC/WAR players that would hop on the bandwagon.  Apparently the devs don't want new players.

Yeah but then they'd lose their established base. As WoW demonstrates, it's only okay to remove the grind once new grind renders it obsolete. If the grind is still determining present day epeen, the folks who wasted time doing it tend to be upset when they're getting beaten up by cheap upstarts with a little gameplay finesse. In Darkfall's case, that proud old guard is all they have left.

Offending their entire current player base to attract bandwagon jumpers is a risk I'm not sure they can afford.

A Planetsidesque breadth vs. depth focus would have served them well. Copying UO PvP was unwise.

[Chinchilla]

I still don't see all this "grind" talk. I have been viable in PVP enough with no grinding. My only maybe "technical" grind I guess is AFK swimming.  Sure I don't kill vet/experienced players yet. I'd be stupid to expect that. But I have been able to stand my ground fairly decent.

[Rendakor]

AFK swimming is the purest definition of grind: something so obnoxious and annoying that you have to automate it. 

[Nebu]

Sure I don't kill vet/experienced players yet. I'd be stupid to expect that.

Why would you be stupid to expect that?  Shouldn't the winner of pvp be the player with the greatest skill? This is the core problem.

[Malakili]

Sure I don't kill vet/experienced players yet. I'd be stupid to expect that.

Why would you be stupid to expect that?  Shouldn't the winner of pvp be the player with the greatest skill? This is the core problem.

This is more or less why PvP in RPGs is doomed to mediocrity in my mind.  No matter how good it is, its never as compelling for me long term as say, Quake or Starcraft.  Something that is highly player skilled based but has the giant open world mechanics of an MMO is the holy grail for me, but I haven't seen much outside of World War 2 Online, and while I do love that game, the pace is incredibly slow, I generally play it in couple month spurts.

Darkfall does better than most RPGs though, don't get me wrong.  The key is that its group based, not 1v1 based (largely like EVE).   Even if you can't kill people one v one, you can be doing things that are helping your side win in a very immediate way.  Compare to the other extreme like WoW where on day one you'd die to one tick of incidental AoE from a max level character.

[Speedy Cerviche]

If they removed the grind, I know a decent number of DAoC/WAR players that would hop on the bandwagon.  Apparently the devs don't want new players.

Yeah but then they'd lose their established base. As WoW demonstrates, it's only okay to remove the grind once new grind renders it obsolete. If the grind is still determining present day epeen, the folks who wasted time doing it tend to be upset when they're getting beaten up by cheap upstarts with a little gameplay finesse. In Darkfall's case, that proud old guard is all they have left.

Offending their entire current player base to attract bandwagon jumpers is a risk I'm not sure they can afford.

A Planetsidesque breadth vs. depth focus would have served them well. Copying UO PvP was unwise.

The majority of the playerbase has been petitioning for less grind for as long as I've been playing. Only a small sub-sect of mega-RPG achievers are definitely not in favour of a huge grind. It's quite clear AV loses players over this.

Though they've taken some small steps to reduce the grind over the past year but I think AV is using a longish skill grind as a substitute for content to at least keep the more hardcore focused while they add content to give people more stuff to do. They've really talked up their "Darkfall 2010" content expansion (of which Tuesday's xpac is a part of) as being a whole new game, tons of sandbox content (along with more specialization sub classes that will reduce necessary skills). At that point I think they'll reduce the grind and launch a marketing campaign to bring people in.



-------------------------------



Had one of my most fun nights ingame so far last night. Dominion & friends (FU alliance) raided our city (Frostcoast) with about 13 people, we only had 6 or so ready (another 10 couldn't get geared in time or were recalling in) in the city right then. Our small group managed to rally across a defensive canyon that divides the city and hold them off for about 10 minutes but we were too outnumbered to draw them fully off the bank so the rest of our guys couldn't gear or get in and we were eventually swarmed when they organized a push across the bridges.

Once they left the city about 5 minutes later we had 1 scout tail them while everyone else geared up and we rolled out a few mins later with about 16-17 people. Caught up with them a few minutes later on an open field, they took up a position around a large rock formation that had about a 30 foot radius base about 5 feet off the ground (so jumpable) and then a large rock in the middle with a flat top (maybe 20 feet high, 4 foot radius).

They had overall some higher skilled players (one dude for example, the SG of Dominion, Fspy, was wearing dragon and infernal armour, they had some other well known and well geared players), but we outnumbered them (again maybe 12 vs 17). We had some newer guys in there with 2-3 month old characters, and they were not just deadweight so overall it was pretty even.

The battle lasted 30 minutes, both sides kept a disciplined formation with lots of cross healing, excellent battle communication and teamowork on our end (something our alliance has really been focusing on the past months and we've really seen a massive improvement in our competitiveness). Both sides picked off a few until in the end I think some of their guys got a bit too aggressive and they started dropping faster, they probably stayed on their defensive rock formation too long while we slowly circled them, when presented with openings they sometimes partially attacked but seemed overall unsure how what to do and their attacks were mostly contained with solid mutual support. I managed to get 3 kills, including a really sweet one where I sniped one of our clan's longtime personal enemies off a ledge with magic kinetic pull spell (come hither) into the middle of 5 of us and we raped him. Overall non-stop action, long drawn out battle, sides evenly matched, solid teamwork both sides, really ebbed and flowed, all varieties of combat employed, archery, melee, support magic, direct magic, laying down big AOEs for suppression (they aren't very damaging, but pretty intimidating, really gets people scrambling when you drop a large ice cloud or tocix rainstorm on them).

After we looted the battlefield and rode home we were attacked not 10 mins later by Sick Bastards and friends (MEX alliance). They brought 10 and we still had about 10 around geared and ready so we again rallied on the south side (across canyon) of our city and got ready. A few of their leaders came across rambo style while they rest goofed around killing naked by our bank, we killed two of their top dogs and the rest just melted away and routed, it became a general chase but half of them rallied a bit north of the city and a bunch of mini-fights broke out as our chase was spread out. Me and another guy basically 2 v 2'd two of them, including one of the most famous players in the game (Ogre SKG), he went after my buddy (a very strong mage who likes to fight in robes, so he looks weak dressed like that even though his cursed bolt spell hits like a truck), I took some bowshots at him and threw some heals on my wingman (this kind of support even a 2-3 week old character can do) and Ogre broke off too heal but his dodgeing pattern was too predictable and I kept pegging him in hte back. He tried to cast a blind but I saw him charging and looked away to dodge it then turned around and finished him. Got the gank off right as 2-3 of his friends came up and I was getting hit by a few spells as I got my axe down into his neck. Another furball ended up as a 2v2 as our reinforcements chased off theirs, I saved my mage friend again when the guy tried to melee him, he tried to blind, dodged it, then tried to shrap jump away (basically the DF version of quake rocket jumping/tribes skiing), but I pegged him twice in the back with my bow and the second shot killed him midair, sick kill and I got to watch his corpse fly 50 feet then I casually walked up and ganked him.

Overall super fun night with over 60 mins of non-stop fighting where we beat all comers but not due to our superior vet characters (we only have maybe 3 guys with 75 int & archmage skill), but better squad tactics, teamwork and discipline, human skills that even newer guys can be a part of.

-------


Darkfall can be an amazingly fun game, combing RPG and FPS in a much superior manner than even Planetside, I just hope AV can successfully complete their 2010 expansion, adding the positive content additions that the game needs, and then lure the players back with marketing and grind reduction, this game could be a huge hit by summer 2011 if they pull it off, just oozes potential.

[Chinchilla]

Well the clan I was originally part of went away.  The leader of the clan who was my buddy disbanded it and his reason was fairly goofy, but he did get us in on another clan.  Originally we were setup with Combat Looters and NME.  They both have nice cities (Zag and whatever that other one is called) with alot of mining nodes and you can for the most part mine in peace.  Well after he disbanded we got us setup with NoX.  Now NoX and their alliances are alot more aggressive and active than the Combat Looters alliance, but their city (Ymne or whatever it is) is located in what seems to be a not so mining node populated area.  There are alot more fights there though so that is good in a way.  In the few days we have been there, there has been like at least 1 raid on the city done daily or every other day at the very least.  Their city is pretty good and using those cannons is a complete blast (which the Zag city does not have). 

So what info do you guys know about those clans I have mentioned?  I'm just curious because I don't really hear much info.  I just play and do my best to kick ass.  One of these days when my new job calms down I'll be able to get more involved in the policital scene.

[Speedy Cerviche]

I lived in Zag for a while there are 2 cannons overlooking the bridge to the city and they can be murder if you are ready for people who are coming, plus the crog is nice to train magic on. We ended up selling Zag cuz it's not a great city. We were also allied with Combat Looters but they were kind of idiots so we dropped them. Their leader is a good guy but there's a bunch of morons in the clan. Not very familiar with NoX, or their alliance they dont have much presence where we are.

[Cheddar]

I know what Chinch is looking for, love the guy.  World. 

Its dead, Jim.  Everyone wants a game.  DIKU FOREVER!!!

[Nightblade]

Darkfall, now with actual content!

"expansion" patch notes:

http://www.darkfallonline.com/expansion/0910.html

It's named Hellfreeze by the way. Yeah. 

[Speedy Cerviche]

Looks like a pretty solid content addition.

I hope all the tweaks and such that are mentioned but haven't been posted are equally positive.

Also now that they have this hurdle out of the way, hopefully they can get on a more regular schedule with less multi-month delays...

Looks like we're about to get a shitload of action up in Frost Coast since Niflheim just got a lot of attention.

[WayAbvPar]

Darkfall, now with actual content!

"expansion" patch notes:

http://www.darkfallonline.com/expansion/0910.html

It's named Hellfreeze by the way. Yeah.  

Where are the DETAILED patch notes, ffs? They are holding onto them like a Puritan's virginity.

Also- they obviously named it after its expected release date.