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Expansion Patch Notes - July 10-2009
Expansion Patch Notes
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The weather system will be patched in tomorrow Saturday July 11th rather than today as previously announced.
In addition to the Darkfall Expansion presentation here are some patch notes containing more information:
Server Optimizations
There have been numerous bug fixes and optimizations performed on the server
An insurance system has been implemented, which in the event of a server crash returns mounts warhulks and ships to either the person who spawned them or to whomever was using them last
Crafting
New ingredients added (to be used for crafting Sithras):
Elemental Blades
Fibulae
Woodcutting now allows you to craft a door that can be used in your house
Ingredient requirements for crafting high level weapons have been reduced
Ingredient requirements for crafting high level armor have been reduced
Ingredient requirements for crafting high level mage staffs have been reduced
Gold income will be produced from all crafting and enchanting stations in clan cities. Every time a player crafts something in a clan city, a small amount of gold will be given to the clan that owns the city.
All new crafted figurines will weigh 100 kg
Support for Autocrafting has been added to all crafting stations
Support for bulk buying has been added to all vendors
WorldBuilding/Area Modification:
The following areas have been modified:
Carpendale
Copperdale
Alberworth
Gulton
Duke's Landing
Stonefang
Gulton
Sandbrook
Hildershall
Grayvale
Wetstone
Winterworth
Chilbourne
Sanguine Bay
Blackwood
Graphics & Animation Updates
to most statues in the world
to most Orkish area decorations
to various Bows & Arrows
Visual updates to Dwarven stone textures
to miscellaneous props scattered all over Agon.
Player jump animations updated
Mount animations updated
Player Whirlwind attack animations updated
Fix for player character death animation
Skills
New Skill for Reading scrolls and books added. Can be bought from the Arcanist
New Skill "House Recall" added. For use with player housing. Can be bought from the Arcanist
User Interface
New Expandable Hotbar
Journal Updated
New clan vault item window
New journal quest page
New Clan news reel page
New crafting overview page
Compass added
Gear
Sithras have been added to the game:
Betrayer
Conqueror
Plaguebearer
Redeemer
Shadebringer
Souleater
Stormcaller
High ranking weapons no longer give a penalty for use with low weapon skill
All Weapon damage has been rebalanced (Lower rank weapons deal less damage and higher rank weapons deal more damage)
Rank 80 weapons have been moved to rank 70
All protections for all armors have been increased (fire, acid, lightning, holy and unholy damage).
Gameplay
Maximum regeneration rate increased to allow stacking of food and resting bonuses
When targeting a warhulk/cannon/mount/ship you will now see who is controlling it
Decreased swim sprint speed
Killing someone when in a party will display a chat message to other party members about the kill
Killing someone when in a clan will display a chat message to other clan members about the kill
Nexus System
You need one nexus entrance and one nexus exit to use the system
You need to first place the entrance (do this by double clicking on the entrance in your backpack)
If you haven't built the exit within 2 hours, the (inactive) entrance will be destroyed
Anyone can destroy a nexus system
There is a timer countdown between each player using the Nexus
There is a limit to the number of players that can go through the nexus system
Anyone, friend or foe, can use a nexus system
You will have to wait for a timer (displayed on the nexus itself) to count down immediately after placement of the nexus exit before you can use it for the first time
New Mount
The Battlehorn features more health and several protections against magic
Monsters
AI tactics upgraded
Several AI exploits plugged
Monster melee attack speed decreased on several monsters
All Monster spawn timers have been rebalanced
Most Monster loot has been updated
Most Monster hit points have been rebalanced
Sieges
You can no longer build in a city when the city is part of a siege
Quests / Rewards
Dynamic roaming chests have been added to Agon. Explore Agon to find these chests that potentially contains House Deeds, scrolls, books, gold and much more
Title Quests(Achievements) have been added (Read more about them on the expansion page)
Fices to some quests that would not give out the correct rewards
Spells and Magic
The Mage in Adianthel now teaches spells and skills
Increased mana cost and cool-down for:
Death Fog
Flames of Vengeance
Ice Storm
Meteor Strike
Thunderstorm
Volcano
Arcane protection has been added to all rings/necklaces
Spell damage penalty from all armor has been increased
Unburden spell effect has been decreased
Extensions for Spells added:
You buy extensions for each spell
Only one extension can be on each spell
If you want to change the extension, you can just go to the Mage and buy another one
Buy the ability to jump while using spells with a small penalty to the spell damage
Buy extra damage for certain spells
Buy longer range for certain spells
Buy higher exit velocity for certain spells
The add-ons can all be bought from mages in clan city Mage Guilds
Player Housing / Village Control System
Player Housing added (Read more about it on the expansion page)
Every 3 days you need to pay tax to keep your house
If you have not paid your taxes within 8 days the house will be freed
Add tenants to your house by alternative use on another player
Use your journal to manage your tenants
A flag outside the house will remind you whether or not taxes are been paid for that particular house
Craft a door and install it on your house.
Other players can destroy your door by attacking your house.
Attacking a house that you don't own or aren't a tenant of will turn you rogue.
Find numerous extensions to your house throughout Agon (chests, monster loot, quests)
Give your house to a player by alternative use on the player you want to give it to
Pay the taxes of a house by targeting it, pressing alternative use and select Pay Taxes. (Anyone can pay the tax on a house)
Install personal crafting stations in your house
Install resource spawns in your house
Much more
Ships
Ship speed has been increased
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Comments
Previous Notes in addition to above..
Massive PvE Monster Re-balancing
We've been watching the PvE dynamic and taking in player and tester feedback while experimenting with the PvE/Monster balance on our test servers. We've decided to implement a massive re-balancing of monster hit points, stats, and loot tables. We agree that many of the mid and high level monsters were unreasonably difficult to fight and we have taken serious rebalancing measures where those were needed. We've increased the gold and reagent drops for most monsters and added a higher probability for uncommon and rare drops such as steedgrass and runestones. Lower level monsters have seen fewer changes than mid to high level ones. We have been testing the results of this re-balancing and, while we're still working on it, we believe that these changes will be a huge improvement and will solve many of the problems players were experiencing with PvE.
Weapon Re-Balancing
Another much needed change: Lower rank weapons were a little too powerful, and higher rank weapons were not powerful enough. We've made adjustments on both ends to restore the proper balance.
Armor Re-balancing
Most armor has received a small increase in magic resistance. This should give warriors more of a chance against concentrated area of effect spells.
Crafting price Adjustments
Most craftable items have seen a significant reduction in crafting costs and especially in gold costs. Higher rank equipment is now a lot cheaper to produce and this should improve the market for the Darkfall crafters. Combined with the new influx of gold in the economy due to the PvE rebalancing, being a crafter in Darkfall should be more profitable than ever.
The Village System
Player housing is tied in with the village system. Groups of houses make up a village. The Village System introduces many dynamic small scale PvP hotspots that clans can compete to control. The individual house ownership doesn't actually change but the village itself generates tax for its owner. Holding one or more villages generates direct gold income, potentially earning your clan thousands of gold every hour.
Character Specialization System
The Character Specialization System gives you the opportunity to enhance and customize your character based on your play-style. It features hundreds of options and thousands of possible combinations that can make your character a true specialist in what he does best.
The first stage of the character specialization system allows you to choose add-ons for many of your spells. Currently there are four customizations you can choose from: You may increase the damage your spell inflicts, its velocity (so it travels faster to the target), the range of the spell, or you can choose to be able to jump while casting it. You can choose one of the four options for each spell.
You can buy these add-ons from Mages in Clan city mage guilds. You may choose to customize your spells to better suit your play-style long-term, or you can make a quick change based on your immediate needs. Buying a new add-on will override the old one and there are no limitations to how often you can change the way your spells are configured.
This is the first stage of the Character Specialization System. Over the coming weeks and months we will keep adding more customizations and options, including specializations for archery and melee combat.
Clan City Crafter Income
Whenever someone uses a crafting station in a city you own, a small gold bonus is added to a pool. Your clan bank will get money from this pool periodically during the course of the day. This adds more incentive to own holdings and perform all crafting operations in your own city or hamlet.
Darkfall's Weather System
The new Darkfall Weather system is extremely sophisticated and it simulates a real world weather system. Some of the weather effects you'll be seeing include rain, wind, variable cloud cover, fog etc. depending on the season and local conditions. Other than enhancing the beauty of the world and player immersion, the weather can affect visibility, making it a tactical ally or an enemy depending on the situation.
Title Quests
Title quests give you huge gold and item rewards and more importantly - a title. Your title gives you a boost in certain attributes depending on the title's type. If you go down the Intelligence line of quests for example, you gain titles that boost your intelligence. You may have several titles and you can switch between them once a day activating different bonuses depending on your needs.
Compass
We've added a compass to Darkfall which should provide to be a great tactical addition to the game. It makes it much easier to navigate or to call out the direction of incoming enemies.
Skill & Spell Books
These extremely rare drops may arm even a new character with deadly spells and skills should he be so lucky as to get his hands on one of them. The skill and spell books have no requirement to use so if you're lucky enough to come into possession of the Book of Volcano, you'll instantly learn that spell and can use it immediately provided you have the proper reagents in your backpack. If you already have the spell you can read the book and get a boost in your proficiency.
Skill and Spell books cannot raise your proficiency past a beginner level of the skill and spell in question. If your proficiency level is over the limit, you won't be able to use the book, but you could sell it, or give it to a friend.
Skill & Spell books can help new players get into the game faster and older ones to get a significant boost in their less developed skills and spells.
Special Attribute consumables
Attribute consumables are new rare drops that can help bridge the gap between you and your mortal enemies. These edibles will give you a permanent increase in attributes up to a medium level. They provide an excellent option for newer characters to catch up to everyone else and for adventurers to find new valuable items for sale on the open market.
Random Treasure Chests
Explorers can now find random treasure chests scattered all over Agon. They may hold rare loot like house deeds, spell books, gold, runestones, sithras, rare ores, keys, attribute consumables and much more.
The Nexus System
The Nexus System is a dynamic tactical transportation system. You can manually spawn an entrance portal and then you go and spawn the exit to it. There's a limited number of people that can use each one of these portals, they can be destroyed, and they also stay open for a limited time. Only one can be active per person. It can be used by anyone, friend or foe. The owner gets a message about who went through his portal, also when it's attacked and when it's destroyed and by whom.
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Now the game is out.
Why? becuase when a developer finally decides to put a buy button on the website it means they are ready for go time.
People forget they did say this would be a slow release until they were ready for prime time. Which I might add from what I have read is basically exactly what MO is doing as well.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
ok well thanks for that input although it had nearly nothing whatsoever to do with what I just wrote.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
ok well thanks for that input although it had nearly nothing whatsoever to do with what I just wrote.
It has everything to do with what you wrote. Darkfall was released back in February. You've been continually trying to fool yourself, and everyone else, with the BS "it isn't even really OUT yet" garbage.
I'm wondering, if the NA release is greeted with low interest, if you'll be back trying to spread the same misinformation again.
Darkfall had its release, and has enjoyed the failure AV deserves as a result of the poor product they put out.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
nah, there are still thousands of potential players who havent tried it, many havent even heard about it. You are assuming that the whole gaming population is only 300k people.
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
nah, there are still thousands of potential players who havent tried it, many havent even heard about it. You are assuming that the whole gaming population is only 300k people.
There still might be a few thousand potential costomers. How ever I think they would be out of that 300,000. I am quite sure that some decided long ago to just wait for the NA release. As far a the idea of many have not heard about the game. I don't think that is the case. Most if not all the people that would like this type of game already know about it. Anyone that has not heard about it would probably be the ones that don't want this style of play.
As for the topic that is a nice list of patches. Lets hope they work well.
omg they have a website
anyway, awaiting US release and some kind of trial.
I wouldn't count on a trial anytime soon. We still don't even know who the publisher is.
I wouldn't count on a trial anytime soon. We still don't even know who the publisher is.
Hopefully they'll deliver some info soon. Im waiting for a trial also.
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
I wouldn't count on a trial anytime soon. We still don't even know who the publisher is.
I'm not in a hurry. Recent MMO releases (including this one) show that there is no need to hurry up and grab a box if you want a solid and polished game because most of the time the game is released with promissed features not being in the game, and can't really blame them when they take longer than their budget allows them.
I wouldn't count on a trial anytime soon. We still don't even know who the publisher is.
I'm not in a hurry. Recent MMO releases (including this one) show that there is no need to hurry up and grab a box if you want a solid and polished game because most of the time the game is released with promissed features not being in the game, and can't really blame them when they take longer than their budget allows them.
I was hoping to get in on release day. But since I care about who I am sending my money to, I will be like you. Patient.
Game released almost five months ago, buy button or not.
Why? Because when the developers allow you to purchase the game and charge a monthly sub it's released.
Some people don't inform themselves before they post about stuff.
MO isn't releaseing like DFO. They are allowing people that prepurchase, I wouldn't call it a preorder, to get into beta. They won't be charging a monthly sub until the game officially releases. It's nothing like lying and misleading consumers and charging them for a wholey unfinished product.
Anyways.
The expansion patch reads just like a end of beta patch.
Almost five months and they still had art and animation assets that needed to be filled.
The second post was redundant as it's all the same stuff that's in the original OP. I guess the "expansion" patch notes weren't quite full enough to be satisifying?
I'm curious if the next patch will add more art and animation assets to the game.
Ork and Dwarf assets have been receiving the most attention; I'm wondering if they were the only things not finished.
You know what is really strange?
There is this huge patch note, but still no word on who the publisher is for the NA server.
Almost like they didn't want potential players to know something..........I'm trying to think of a legit reason for not revealing a publisher's name, but for the life of me, I can't think of a single reason.
The only reason that pops into mind is that ther NA server will be a self-publish by AV, which would make it appear that they would be charging fans twice if they went from Euro server to the NA server on opening day.
But no reputable company would do that, would they?
Man, placing the name of the NA server's publisher on this huge patch note would have made all kinds of sense, I can't believe that they'd overlook this opportunity to communicate with their player base.
I must just be missing something here.
It's over a months worth of needed changes, AV was on a weekly patch schedule. DFO has been and will be self published.
Trolls/Fans... does it really matter? It's like Dark and LIght all over again with Np-Cube and Farlan.
I win!!! LOL@U
"An insurance system has been implemented, which in the event of a server crash returns mounts warhulks and ships to either the person who spawned them or to whomever was using them last "
That's a good thing. Would hate to see a hacker fly off with a ship and lose it to a crash.
This is a well done video with expansion info. from Ripper.
www.youtube.com/watch
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
On that particular note, regardless of whether AV announced the publisher, you would imagine a publisher would be making their presence known via advertising and hyping the NA release. Forget if it was Darkfall, MO, Earthrise, or whatever; one of primary function of publishing is advertising and I would be hard pressed to think of a publisher that would not be actively engaged in that process since it translates to the ultimate bottom line.
With that in mind, what has Darkfall done that could be confused with industry standard practices? They have made a habit of doing things in a seemingly counter-intuitive manner, for better or worse, and they are still here. Why stop now?
Really, the new patch and updated website are big steps forward for AV (in my opinion) and refreshing to see, but the publisher mystery is something they could easily clear up and is something that might get some of the fence-sitters to open their wallets.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
yeah, cause blizzard hasn't been double-charging people to switch from EU to NA and back for the last 5 years... Oh wait, they have. blizzard don't even give you the option to transfer chars EU <-> NA either, you just have to buy a whole new client plus all the expansions again.
a clue.
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
you're*
EVE is proof of the exact opposite. IMO starting small and building up is the only sensible way to go for indie sandbox games.
only the really big production studios are ever going to be able to support 100K+ players on release day, and let's face it, the bid marketing spend is just to suck as many players as possible into buying boxes to recoup their huge marketing/development outlay. the quality of the actual game is a distant second to marketing and selling boxes.
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
you're*
EVE is proof of the exact opposite. IMO starting small and building up is the only sensible way to go for indie sandbox games.
only the really big production studios are ever going to be able to support 100K+ players on release day, and let's face it, the bid marketing spend is just to suck as many players as possible into buying boxes to recoup their huge marketing/development outlay. the quality of the actual game is a distant second to marketing and selling boxes.
I know your trying say how sandbox games grow, however you really cannot compare how eve evolved and claim thats what av is trying to do.
Wgen eve came out it wasnt even advertized we didnt have a dev hyping the shit out of us and all and making huge claims. As eve's economy started to boom, the players started to come in.
People who actually enjoy economics enjoy eve and prob will never pvp in their life. then you have the pvpers and pve players. Eve was completely built by the players. As it is now you cannot say the same for Darkfall.
Like i said in another post. Dark fall has universal banking,. That alone is killing the game no matter how you try to deny it. The local banking in eve is what made it strong, should i risk going into a lowsec system to buy some really cheap items? Risk vs reward.
Sadly Darkfall doesnt have that and eliminating universal banking would push the game in the right direction. have materials spread out in different areas of Agon forcing players to ventrue out to get the mats they need to craft, Hire people to protect em as they bring their goods back to their city and so on. Universal banking just made this game for carebears who swear they are hardcore. There is NO risk in darkfall, you just bank your shit up. Now there are deeds to houses and well just bank the bitch.
The so called "expantion" is not even an expantion. Take out all the fixes , tweaks and rebalances and you got a few late features added into the game. Heck when warhammer finally introduced the classes that didnt make it when it came out it was a patch.
Now people are comming out of citys to check the new stuff. but once thats over its back in the same place, there is no long term reason to hunt for chests or kill mobs. There is no real Reward to take a risk . There is No economy to even speak of , thus no need to even craft as well everyone can craft. Also to boot since you get stats for doing crafting and all, everyone will focus on that just for the stats making it pointless to focus on crafting.
The state Darkfall is in would have been acceptable 10 years ago. Not now, While eve has got better over the years , ccp makes sure their game can compete with whats out now. Darkfall should have met with the majority of whats considered standard today. Not be a husk of a game and start adding standard features as it grows. 7 to 10 years ago one can understand that due to the lack of technology compared to today games were limited. You cannot compare Uo,everquest, eve or any other old mmorpgs release to Darkfalls release. Back then things were limited, not today. There just no excuse for how bad Darkfall started , especially knowing whats out in the market, and the years it took for this game to be made.
Comparing darkfall to recent releases is understandable like compareing it to warhammers release or aoc..
Now, Darkfall was voiced by Tasos and hyped to hell, He has lied alot, ninja changed parts of the player agreement and done many other stupid things. All that is what is fucking darkfall up the ass right now. If he would have not lied of the state of the game and explained his intentions, many people wouldnt have had high expectations and felt like they were not met. They would have took the game as a paid beta knowing that the company needs more resorces to finalize the game. The negativity would have been much less and prob only the true haters would be the only ones mocking the paid beta state. darkfall would have been viewed differently and prob be more popular in a positive way.
Darkfall is popular in a negative way. The news is out there and its going to be hard to get a new influx of players. AV set their reputation to be worse than liquid diarrea with almond chunks.
This patch "expantion" will onlu raise the attention to the few people who played and left. Even on the mmorpg fourms, the game has lost its popularity. Its the same people posting here all the time, No one cares anymore. The fun and drama these forums had finally subsided and we see the same topics with different words every time now.
Av did have their chance and they let Tasos blow it big time.
Watching Fanbois drop their soap in a prison full of desperate men.
Your only fooling yourself.
Most people who would ever buy or play such a game, was part of the 300k who registered for beta. No amount of "ok this is the real release of Darkfall" is going to bring them back or change their minds.
You only have 1 shot at a release... no amount of anything afterwards will ever matter. Vanguard is proof of that.
you're*
EVE is proof of the exact opposite. IMO starting small and building up is the only sensible way to go for indie sandbox games.
only the really big production studios are ever going to be able to support 100K+ players on release day, and let's face it, the bid marketing spend is just to suck as many players as possible into buying boxes to recoup their huge marketing/development outlay. the quality of the actual game is a distant second to marketing and selling boxes.
Javec,
I don't know if you've ever noticed, or that it completly slips your mind, but EVE doesn't have any compition as a space game. EVE is in it's own Genre'. That has ALOT to do with it's success..!!
Secondly, Aventurine path and deployment of their game has nothing to do with CCP's business model or plan. Aventurine started big, went small because they botched a 7 year development cycle and had to have a "staggard release" to slowly test their net-code... which they never got to do in their botched beta.
Matter of fact EVE and DFO are completly different. EVE started small and when the NDA was dropped, more people got interested and the community over the years has slowly grown. On-the-other-hand, when Darkfall's NDA was released, some 95% of the community crossed DFO off their list. And of those who did subscribe, slowly grew bored and left DFO within months.
5 Months into EVE's release, they had doubled their subscribers.... 5 months into DFO's release, they have lost 50% of their subscribers.
How much more blind and misleading can you be Javec..?
Anyone can see the vast differences in the different business plans and implamentation. Or, did Aventurine decide to start paying you again to write these highly impractical posts, that are so overly biased, laughable and wrong. (???)
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
So after getting through that wall of text, your saying..
1) DFO was hyped
Mostly by fans, far more than by AV. Not sure how you make a case for AV hyping its game, when you'd be hard pressed to actually find typical sources most games use to advertise.
2) Global banking sucks
That's your opinion. I can go either way, but in a harsh open ffa full loot pvp world, I sort of like global banking, particularly when I've been adventuring for hours and want to use one without recalling all the way back to where I started.
3) The expansion isn't an expansion
Like this is really important? The "Addition" of "Housing, a Villiage System with asset benefits and open pvp opportunities for villiages to be captures/lost; Nexus System" it is clearly an expansion. I agree the many other items on the list can be viewed as a patch, but not the ones I just referenced.
4) No real reward to take risk
You have to be joking. If your guild spends countless hours farming to build a city, you still risk losing it, same with Hamlets, same with Ships; same with every virtual item you can own in this game except a house, which would need to decay. At death you drop all your gear and inventory. If you kill your own race you are unable to enter npc made cities and must rely on chaos cities which are just that, chaotic, and/or player made cities if you happen to have access to one.
5) There's no excuse to "how Darkfall started"
Of course; DFO has a cornerstone on released MMO's that have issues at release. AO had probably the worst release ever and turned out to be one of the best MMO's ever.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
1) Viral marketting is still marketting.
Intriegue those who participate in your community and they go out and spread the world, as they did. Gameplay videos are marketting. Interviews and dev journals are marketting.
This insistance that Av had nothing to do with the hype around thier game is nonsence. They didn't keep it under wraps for 9 years, they opened a website at just about the time the game began development.
2) Eve uses local banks and is a FFA full loot pvp game. High sec space is no dif then the racial cities and thier towers.
Maxnrosy is correct, local banking prevents the game from developing a true economy. As does the skill system.
3) You're right, who cares, but.
Housing was never "cut months ago" as some fanatics claim. The ability to build a house any place was cut months ago. I don't recall Av ever saying that no form of housing was ever going to be in. They didn't just develope the village system in a month, they would have been working on this for a while now.
Put it another way. They released a patch with a village system, a new mount, and some new weapons.
That's not much of an expansion. Especially when the remainder of the patch is art and animation assets, optimizations and balance fixes.
4) Maxnrosy was talking about personal risk vs reward. The fact that I can have a bank full of armor, weapons, and resources doesn't make losing what I'm wearing much of a risk. Items are rather devalued due to the banking system. They had a thread on the official boards were people were showing thier banks, it was pretty ridiculous.
Basically there is no risk when the stuff I have has next to no value. What is one sword when I have a hundred.
Lineage 2 had risk vs reward. You played, you know what kind of work it was getting your next grade of gear. I don't know if you ever lost anything, I did, it sucked. Dying and losing my stuff in DFO didn't hurt, losing half my B grade gear when dying was a tragic blow and taught me a huge lesson. Lineage 2 is hardcore, DFO fronts like it is.
Hamlets aren't even used. Don't even say they are, you know they aren't. It's impossible to hold them unless your a large clan with a healthy alliance, and even then, constantly repairing the bank becomes chore and eventualy everyone just stopped.
5) Anarchy Online had to change thier model in order to keep going. There's a reason why the base game is F2P, and Funcom NEVER recovered from that launch. The game survived but it never reached it's potential. It's not all due to the launch of course, but I also don't see DFO becoming F2P; although, that's about what the game is worth.
So after getting through that wall of text, your saying..
1) DFO was hyped
Mostly by fans, far more than by AV. Not sure how you make a case for AV hyping its game, when you'd be hard pressed to actually find typical sources most games use to advertise.
2) Global banking sucks
That's your opinion. I can go either way, but in a harsh open ffa full loot pvp world, I sort of like global banking, particularly when I've been adventuring for hours and want to use one without recalling all the way back to where I started.
3) The expansion isn't an expansion
Like this is really important? The "Addition" of "Housing, a Villiage System with asset benefits and open pvp opportunities for villiages to be captures/lost; Nexus System" it is clearly an expansion. I agree the many other items on the list can be viewed as a patch, but not the ones I just referenced.
4) No real reward to take risk
You have to be joking. If your guild spends countless hours farming to build a city, you still risk losing it, same with Hamlets, same with Ships; same with every virtual item you can own in this game except a house, which would need to decay. At death you drop all your gear and inventory. If you kill your own race you are unable to enter npc made cities and must rely on chaos cities which are just that, chaotic, and/or player made cities if you happen to have access to one.
5) There's no excuse to "how Darkfall started"
Of course; DFO has a cornerstone on released MMO's that have issues at release. AO had probably the worst release ever and turned out to be one of the best MMO's ever.
-CC
Responding to your number 3....
LotRO released housing (among other things) in an update, not an expansion. So, your point is not made.