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Two months of Darkfall. A review.
I do not like this game.
As much as I want to, I can not. It's not the graphics, it's not the UI, or the bugs, full loot, or what feels like a magorilly idiot playbase. It's the mind-numbingly boring combat, shallow skill system, empty lifeless world, and boring, overly repetitive grind.
Darkfall started, for me, with a weeks worth of frustration and annoyance, and I hadn't even purchased an account yet.
Darkfall is a grind.
It's mantra is, "just play the game." Well, I did.
The UI isn't to bad. A little clunky, and on some occasions not very responsive. Attempting to track a quest through the journal is like grinding chalk against a chalk board. What could be a very nice feature of the game, the journal map is very nice, is just more trouble then it's worth, and very poorly implimented. Overall it took me about a half an hour to get accustomed to the controls and interface. I didn't have much trouble with constantly having to right click to do everything but fight, although I did get frustrated over constatly going into interface mode by accident; especially while engaged in combat. After changing the right mouse button to block things got a lot more managable.
Graphics aren't bad. The world is detailed and very atmospheric; unfortunetly the character models detract from it. Lighting and shadows are nice, the lighting more so then the shadows. Watching the planets and moons move is a pleasure the first couple of times you see it, but after a bit I found myself noticing all of the odd glitches. The way the giant moon doesn't seem to fit into the scene a lot of times, the exact same ball of birds lagging across the sky in thier abnomally uniform sphere. However, seeing the sky darken as storm clouds roll in was impressive no matter how many times I saw it. It's just a shame it never rained, no thunder ever accompanied the clouds, and I don't think I've ever seen lightening. Combine the change in light as the dark clouds roll through with a thick rolling fog, and there could be a in incredible amount of mood in the world, except there isn't any fog. Incredibly poor animations don't help either. It's like they used the same 6 animations across the board. Every race looks the same riding a mount, they all swing thier weapons in the same stiff, lifeless way.
Sound is worthy enough to turn off. But you can't, not really. Sound is an integral part of the game. From identify the sounds of hooves, feet, axe or pic, and the tell tale, "help!" of a hapless player, turning off the sound can actually hurt you. For the first month, thankfully, I was spared the doink of my weapon making contact with my opponent. Whether it was on, or not implimented I couldn't say, I do wish it had stayed off though. Unfortunetly, having the hit indicator on helps; no matter how horrible it is. The audio indicator is considerably more helpfull then the visual. Every sound comes from the same direction, either somewhere near or far in front of you, or near or far behind you. Apparently Av thinks 3d sound means how many helps!, foot, or hoof sounds you can hear, but not in wich direction they are coming from.
It was the gameplay that really destroyed the game for me. It's a grinder; plain and simple. No character levels isn't really saying much when you trade one advancement platform for another. You must level your skills. Not get better at them, not practice them, level them. That means spending a large magority of your time killing NPC's, harvesting resources, or crafting in order to make your character better. Gear matters, player skill matters, character skills mean the world. A player that has hit or surpassed the 75 mark, with decent gear should have no trouble taking out a newer character unless they are completely inept at playing the game. The skill system works exactly like any themepark class system. As you level a skill, and reach specific milestones, new skill become available for purchase that will increase the amount of damage your character is able to dish out. This is not UO. The skill system really did nothing for instilling a sence of playing in a sandbox for me; in truth, it actually felt not much diffirent then playing a game like Final Fantasy XI. I never felt like I was building my character, only advancing him; wich is exactly how I feel when playing a game like WoW. Every character is pretty much just like the last, and in fact, many skills are considered a must have to level, like launch, mana to stamina, and heal mount; wich means everyone levels magic to a farely high degree. There is no room within the skill system to allow a player to build a unique character, instead you're just one more meat shield in the grinder.
Archery. Great! Shallow. Hold button, aim in the right spot, and release. Same stock arrows, same string draw distance, same rate of fire. Skills unlock when you reach a particular milestone, or should I say skill unlocks? I never got archery high enough to actually unlock any skills so I wouldn't actually know. Players could actually substitute arrows for gold in DFO. Fun? Yes, but the skill system itself lets it down.
Magic. Meh. Spells moved to slow, bugged often, and were entirely to easy to dodge and the worst grind in the game. There are lots of spells, and many schools of magic to choose from. Fun? Yes, but the grind involved in getting to the fun stuff can be incredibly daunting.
Melee. Horrible. Everything about melee combat, from pacing, animations, to skills, is just the worst I have ever seen in a game. Kung Fu on the nintendo had more depth, strategy and skill involvment then DFO's melee combat. Put the target in your crosshair and left click when you think they are in range. Hit or miss you'll see the exact same animation; your only indicators will be the absolutly god awful sound, or a paintball splat of blood. There is no sence of timing blocks or strikes to get an advantage over your opponent. Holding block while your partner stabs the guy hitting you in the back is as tacticful and strategic as blocking gets. Maybe if I was able to simply ignore melee combat, and focus entirely on magic as I had wanted I could overlook the spasmic twisting, turning, and ducking of melee, but I couldn't. You are hardpressed to find any other form of combat outside of archery to be a worthwhile means of killing another person; that is a person who hasn't been playing for only a few days to a week.
Overall the game felt a lot like a persistant world version of Team Fortress. It was a lot of running from one clan city to the next; either defending or attacking that city, and harvesting in between. For most of one of the two months I spent in game, that time was spent mostly doing PvP. My skills? Nope, they never really got very far. If you're not grinding on NPC's over and over for the magority of your game time you're not advancing very fast; especially if you're doing a lot of seiging. Money? Barely had any. Over the course of two months I maybe killed three people that had any substantial sum of money on them, and forget about gear. For me, most of the mobs in the game didn't drop loot. See, I didn't go into DFO to kill goblins for months on end, I went in to kill other people for months on end. Other players were my mobs, and the loot table for my mobs was the worst I've ever seen in an MMO. Killing mobs was only fun at first, the newness of an MMO, and more so one that's using FPS style combat is the driving force behind the great impression a pvp addict can get from the game, but it doesn't stick very well, and just turns into a choar more then the enjoyable experience it should've been.
Would I reccomend Darkfall? Not a chance. The gameplay just doesn't justify the cost of entry. Neither the box fee, nor the monthy sub is justified.
Will you like the game? It's possible, not very, but it is. A gamer plays games, even bad ones.
Would I go back in a few months? Only if the other sandbox MMO's coming down the pipes are worse then Darkfall, and seeing as DFO is possibly the worst game I've ever played, I'm think it's an incredible longshot that I'll ever be revisiting.
Comments
Hmm does anybody pay you for playing DFO for 2 months if you hate it so much?
You're assuming I started disliking the game early in.
If I played for two months, why would you think that the magority of that game time was played while disliking it.
Some people stick to things in the hopes that one day it gets better.
I started drawing as a child. It was hard, sometimes down right frustrating. Many times I found myself wanting to give up, but the more I stuck to it, the better I got, and the more my love of art and creation grew. This is the opposite effect DFO had.
The MORE I played it, the less I enjoyed it, and the more it's flaws ate at me.
And why the hell did you quote my entire post?
Who else would I think you were talking to?
You're assuming I started disliking the game early in.
If I played for two months, why would you think that the magority of that game time was played while disliking it.
Maybe it was this:
"Darkfall started, for me, with a weeks worth of frustration and annoyance, and I hadn't even purchased an account yet."
Hmm does anybody pay you for playing DFO for 2 months if you hate it so much?
Hmm if he had only played a week, or one month - would you have said "oh you haven't played it long enough, you need to play longer?" cuz if you hadn't, half a dozen others would.
be better than that.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
You're assuming I started disliking the game early in.
If I played for two months, why would you think that the magority of that game time was played while disliking it.
Maybe it was this:
"Darkfall started, for me, with a weeks worth of frustration and annoyance, and I hadn't even purchased an account yet."
I could be wrong but I think he was alluding to how difficult (and frustrating) it was to even buy an account...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
You're assuming I started disliking the game early in.
If I played for two months, why would you think that the magority of that game time was played while disliking it.
Maybe it was this:
"Darkfall started, for me, with a weeks worth of frustration and annoyance, and I hadn't even purchased an account yet."
So a weeks worth of annnoyance trying to actually PURCHASE a game means that my entire two months of playtime wasn't any fun?
You're assuming I started disliking the game early in.
If I played for two months, why would you think that the magority of that game time was played while disliking it.
Maybe it was this:
"Darkfall started, for me, with a weeks worth of frustration and annoyance, and I hadn't even purchased an account yet."
kshahdoo and journey01 -- when did both of you purchase your accounts (what date?) and how easy and quick was it for you to do so? did you get it the very first time you looked and decided you would purchase the game? did you play the account lottery? did someone buy it for you?
i'm curious as to why neither of you had any frustration or annoyance in purchasing an account...
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Well its good to see that you actually gave it a decent shot. I think 2 months is plenty of time to get the idea of how a game is shaping up. Hopefully they will continue working at it, maybe make some improvements, etc. Cheers for giving it the old college try!
Thank you.
It is a shame.
Many here seem to think that people hate this game just for the sake of hating it, and that couldn't be further from the truth.
I WANT to play this game.
I really, truelly do.
But it's just not fun in the long term.
What should be a very fun, thrilling, and exciting combat system is a massive let down.
I'm an FPS junky and DFO should be a dream come true for me. It's exactly the kind of MMO I've been dreaming of. There are even some here that try to argue that DFO isn't an FPS game, yet it's mechanics are exactly that.
I really do believe that if you're an FPS nut, someone that enjoys a game like Day of Defeat, Call of Duty, or Unreal Tournament, you're very likely to not find DFO worth a long term investment.
If you're into Team Fortress or largescale clan based pvp you may not find DFO worth the long term investment.
Any game deserves a, "you may like it", that can be said of EVERY game that releases.
There is someone out there that, "may like it", but DFO has to adressed in the opposite.
There is honestly a much better chance that if you try this game, you WON'T like it.
I don't say this as someone that dislikes the game.
I say this as a gamer.
As an FPS junky.
As an MMO addict.
Darkfall Online is not worth the money, and if you're someone that this game is geared towards, there is a better chance you won't like it then will.
If DFO was half the monthly fee, I MIGHT be willing to sub to it.
If it was F2P I would def. play it.
even though i disagree with almost everything you said, unlike the majority of haters, at least you tried it, although it was clear from your first post about your experiences you went into the game *expecting* to hate it.
things i agree with:
1) the world & environment graphics are good. when you consider the day/night sunset/sunrise light/shadow cycles, DF has some of the best world/enviro graphics of all the current MMOs.
2) the PVP is great.
3) melee is meh. it's the weakest of the 3. even though it's manually aimed and real-time, it needs more skills/depth.
things i disagree with:
1) 3d sound works. sounds that are close to you betray their direction, distant ones don't -- it's realistic.
2) archery is well-done. they have gone for realism, not arbitrarily-created joke skills like "silencing shot", "scatter shot". seriously, WTF? you can shoot an arrow that silences me and/or incapacitates me? no thanks. they could improve it a little by adding arrows with different performance characteristics (heavy/med/light weight, long/short-range flights, piercing/blunt heads), and different accuracy/damage based on draw time. but otherwise it's good. FWIW i did archery for a few years in my teens.
3) magic is good. those 3 "essential" magic skills you listed are all in "lesser magic" and can be obtained in the first 3 days of playing if you make an effort. could some of the spell effects be better? sure, but anyone writing the game off cause some of the spell effects are dated can bore themsleves to death repeat-playing crysis for all i care.
4) the grind. what grind? you don't have to grind anything if you don't want to. sure if you're the kind of player who's too chickenshit to do anything in a game until you max out everything you'll feel compelled to grind but then you'll get wtfpwned by people like me who spent most of their playtime actually PVPing and duelling. people that complain about the "grind" make me lol.
let's compare DF to WOW: in DF you can have 75/100 lesser magic in 3-4 days. you can have 75 archery in a week. you can get 75 weapon in 2. or you can say screw the grinding and just play for 6 weeks and have all the basics at 75+ and have had tons more fun.
ok now WOW: it takes a minimum of 45 x 24 hours non-stop playing to get to max level. then you have to grind factions/instances to unlock instances. then you have to grind instance runs with idiots for pre-raid gear. then you have to grind raids to progress through scripted raid bosses in the specified progression order. all the time following the exact same sequences of levelling, faction-grinding, instance-grinding, and raid-grinding that every single other player has done.
in DF, you can be raiding cities, sailing ships, and doing high-end PVE content within hours of creating a new character. sure you need a clan that will take you along for this stuff but none of this is possible in WOW, or in any other level-based MMO.
things you didn't comment on:
1) mounted combat. works really well. feels realistically awkward to maneuver, fighting from a mount does pwn damage but the mount is fragile and killable/stealable, so there is a good risk/reward balance.
2) ship combat. it's cool.
3) sieges. intense and chaotic.
4) PVE. it's effectively target practise for PVP and the main source of spell & enchanting reagents. it's decent and solo-wise IMO much much better than the themepark MMOs for the simple fact that everything is aimed. that said, PVE is not the focus of the game; mob spawns are effectively resource control points to fight for control of, much like cities are.
5) the game economy. raw mats for most things come from gathering skills: chopping trees, mining rocks for stone, mining ores for metal, fishing, and cutting herbs. killing mobs makes up the other part of the material equation. trade channel works ok but the game really needs a auction house/player vendor system for the economy to really thrive. crafting and crafters are really valued as they should be and contrary to the carebear reviewers, you can actually specialise in crafting.
in the end, you tried the game, and didn't like it. no big deal, shit happens. i'm sure you probably saw enough of the game to see how others can love it, even if you didn't.
could it be better? OF COURSE it could. all new MMOs could be better. when you go back and compare DF now to how WOW was 2 months after release, or EVE for its first whole year post-release, or more recently to the flops of AoC and WAR, DF holds up really really well. it delivers what it says on the box: freedom-based sandbox PVP with territorial conquest as a central focus.
i don't get some of the thinking that goes along with darkfall.
looting is convoluted and cumbersome for it to be "realistic".
archery is done in a "realistic" fashion.
why can any character swim in ANY type of armor, much less full plate, much less AS FAST as a nakie person? why aren't we going for this wonderful "realism" here, when it's touted as a major plus for the above two?
there's more "realistic" inconsistencies i can add as pros and cons; but the above should suffice. why the disconnect and contradictions? if the realism is great for those two, why isn't the lack of realism slammed for the third?
much less the huge nullifier of all - there are no orcs, dragons, fireballs in the real realistic place. which prompts me to ask -- wtf with realistic statements at all?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
there's a lot of us that play eve, and some of us played UO back in da dread days. some played/play SB and DAOC. i'm willing to bet the majority of people playing a game that you have to enter an account lottery (essentially) JUST TO BUY the game... are pvp types.
reviewers being pve'ers -- they drew the short straw maybe.
just like that ignorantly used "hater" tag. people need to think before typing and hitting "post message". this isn't an Ed Wood movie; although the same premise is there -- make a great story and people won't mind that you're messing up on the details and special effects and such... the problem here, is there is no story; well, that an no one watching Ed's movies agreed with his thinking.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
What ever, The game has massive bugs and is not fun to play. The population has been and always will be low until the day it folds up shop.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
There is no comparing DFO to any other game at release.
Other games had bad launches. Most of the time it's a result of poor optimization leading to bugs and server instability, but DFO is the ONLY GAME I have ever played that was completely lacking everything they said it was.
They released with the core mechanics in place, and have been changing them over the last 2+ months.
They said it was 100% complete and that was a lie.
Personally I'm of the opinion that the people who love this game, and will stick with it, simply don't have very high expectations.
<Mod Edit>what potential is that? this game is the most feature complete MMO in the past 12+ years... remember? it was in THAT state... a year ago?
i'm not stupid enough to drink the kool aid, Mr. Jones.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I should have mentioned.
The subscription fee for DFO is more then a triple A MMO.
More then WoW, EQ2, Lineage 2.
In fact. It's the most expencive MMO I've ever subbed to.
By a little less then a dollar, but you're still paying more for considerably less then any other MMO has offered at release.
I played DF from early closed beta. I bought DF when they originally allowed beta testers to get their copies first. I even play the game up until last week. Let me say this.
They released a totally unfinished product. Not even 50% of the things promised made it into the game. I've followed this game, been on their boards, and hoped for it to be the best since 2004. And once getting into beta I even said "alright, it's just beta and they've said they're still adding things." They even delayed release a number of times in 08 and even 09 to give themselves more time.
Then they released the game. Nothing changed from closed beta to what I would call and "Pay to play open beta." The game mechanics and practically the whole game has been changed in the 2 or so months it's been out. They weren't ready by any stretch of the imagination.
This was the single worst launch in MMO history, end of story. The only thing this game was good for was me selling my account for 4X what I paid for it since no one else in the world could get one.
<font size="6"><strong><a href="
Monday - 1/17/11</strong></font></a>
good review, you tried it out long enough. the whole "fanboy vs hater" debate will lessen in a few months when most ppl left DF.. and they already have a very low playerbase. for a game that took 8 years to develope its pretty sad.
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
Nice write up OP!
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"
You're assuming I started disliking the game early in.
If I played for two months, why would you think that the magority of that game time was played while disliking it.
Some people stick to things in the hopes that one day it gets better.
I started drawing as a child. It was hard, sometimes down right frustrating. Many times I found myself wanting to give up, but the more I stuck to it, the better I got, and the more my love of art and creation grew. This is the opposite effect DFO had.
The MORE I played it, the less I enjoyed it, and the more it's flaws ate at me.
And why the hell did you quote my entire post?
Who else would I think you were talking to?
why did he quote the entire post ?
Iv'e stuck with AoC, hopeing it would get better, i no where your coming from
Good review, OP, 100% corresponding with my own experience.
And don't tell me I didn't warn you guys... I started warning you before release that this game was very shallow and not worth the money. Maybe you can resell your account to one of the drooling fanboys and make a benefit?
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
honestly, it's fun because it's easy to gank a bunch of these hardcore pvp types; and some irl friends play. i think it's down to the last one that still has hopes for the game, and once he shrugs it off; we'll all leave DF.
not to "go back" to anything, i don't think any of us have quit another game in order to play DF. so, there won't be a 'going back' to something you never left.
potential... if they could've delivered SOME of the features on the homepage; then, sure, it'd have potential. mounted combat and ships are just not enough "features" to make this game different on an appreciable level; not when taken in the context of all the horribleness that is rampant.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
honestly, it's fun because it's easy to gank a bunch of these hardcore pvp types; and some irl friends play. i think it's down to the last one that still has hopes for the game, and once he shrugs it off; we'll all leave DF.
not to "go back" to anything, i don't think any of us have quit another game in order to play DF. so, there won't be a 'going back' to something you never left.
potential... if they could've delivered SOME of the features on the homepage; then, sure, it'd have potential. mounted combat and ships are just not enough "features" to make this game different on an appreciable level; not when taken in the context of all the horribleness that is rampant.
Ya know,
That is honestly the only thing that makes me want to play, and if they had actually done a decent job of the combat, I would be right now.
This i also play since about 2 months and the game is not getting old, last days i did explore (explore means explore, its the only world earns the title exploring a world) and i had the fun like the first day.
Many people give up because they obviously take a look at their skill level number every 5 minutes instead of playing the game, must be Wow has produced this behavior in people.
The devs had a design in mind and they did delivered that design. I like the design, it is consistent and it is clear what they wanted. I do not fear grind, i do no fear death and loot ,i did not "played" while afk and didn't looked at my "levels" at the end of the day. We play in clan with events , lets do these , lets do that and my days in DarkFall are full of action, fun, and having a good time which reminds me the time oi had SWG Pre Cu. Sure there are no dancers, but SWG didn't had a meaningful warfare system on the other hand which DF has.
Like in first day i rate DF stll 8 / 10 .epic fun.
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Why did even bother to quote Javac?
Last time I checked he didn't create the thread, nor did he write the review.
Actually I would rarely check my stats. I never actually cared to much about them.
I had an idea of what character I wanted, how I wanted to play him, and I did my best with the tools I was given.
Aside from feeling that the skill system is exceptionally shallow and poorly contrived, I didn't really have much of a problem with it; after all, I wasn't very concerned with my skill levels.
BTW,
Darkfall doesn't have a meaningful warefare system either.
You can do just as much without a fort as you can with one, and unless you're the supreme general or one of the higher ranking officers, the fort really doesn't have much of an impact. In fact, you can do more at an NPC city then you can at your fort. Hanging around my clans fort was mostly a bunch of pointless PvP, I could rarely accomplish anything. Towards the end of my two months I actually moved back to the mainland because it was getting to be really tedious at the clan city.
When I can use your fort without being in your clan then the fort loses all meaning.
Since the forts are poorly placed most of them can be entered regardless of the gate being up or down.
The forts only provide a reason to organise large scale pvp battles.
Other games do it loads better though.
Lineage 2 has a reason to own a castle, it actually IMPACTS the world. There is no impact in owning a fort in DFO. It doesn't matter who has it, it doesn't actually do anything.