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Something that concerns me
BlackWizards
Member Posts: 173
So I've been waiting some hours for DFO to finish downloading, and sense I had already planned to stay up all night (not because of darkfall mind you), I figured I would read the forums while I waiting for it to finish installing.
I learned quite a bit about the game, as most of the info I had known about the game was from pre-release info and things I had read here.
One particular thread discussed an issue that I didn't know, and now rather bothers me.
I didn't know Darkfall had universal banking and fast travel. I vaguely remember reading about the universal banking a long long time ago, and I had considered it much at the time.
As a longtime EVE player and fanboy, one thing that I really felt eve got right was not having much in the way of fast/safe travel and nothing even close to universal banking. Now I hate to compare apples to oranges here, and I know some of you might feel I am doing that, but this seems like a game changing issue in my mind, here is why...
Both EVE and DFO have vary large worlds, and player controlled and contested regions. For me, having a huge world means finding a region, living in it, and enjoying the region politics. It is very difficult, in some cases impossible, to get from one end of the EVE game world to the other. For one it takes a long time, but more importantly it is dangerous.
Players can control a region quite effectively, and stop other alliances and players from traveling through their region. Most alliance will find a region and stay for the most part only active in that region. Regions have their own in game history and even to some extent what may be called lore, read up about Geminate if you're curious.
This aspect of the game makes EVE feel very much like a real world, it also helps to create eve's infamous economy, because if you want to sell stuff in a particular place you have to take every single item there, often at great risk.
Regions have their own character in EVE, if you go to the Great Wildlands, you know you might run into an Alliance like COW or Gentlemens Club, if you go into Delve you know you're going to find the GOON, if you go to Fount you will run into PL etc...
What you won't find very often, are these groups in areas very far from their home base, though it obviously still happens during wars and such.
From what I have been reading about Darkfall, none of this is the case. People can use some stones to warp all over the game world at will, guilds will attack other guilds on the opposite side of the map simply by teleporting their attack force there. People can teleport from all over Agon to all the know leet spawns and get the kill and then get out via teleportation.
In eve if my corp goes deep into some one else space we run the risk of being trapped there with no possible way of leaving, this actually happened to me a few weeks back when messing around in Goon space, we got trapped, all exits to the system where camped and we were forced to hide while they hunted us down. It sucked to die like, but yet it was fun, and dangerous.
In eve you can be a pirate, this is well know, but I don't think anything like that can really exist in Darkfall, because every one can throw all their valueables into the bank on side A, get naked and then ride to side B and pull their valueables out.
This kind concerns me. It makes DFO sound more like an open world version of CS, than an MMO with Empires, territorial disputes and pirates.
I gleaned most of this from this thread- http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=217202
What do you think? Are my concerns misplaced? Do you agree or disagree?
I still plan to try DFO in another 5 hours when the game finished DL-ing but I am worried that ultimately the fast travel and universal banking will not be for me.
Comments
Excellent thread. I've seen complaints about universal banking/fast travel but not quite understood what the issue really was until I read your post.
I quite agree, it would be more immersive if they followed the EVE model but someone playing will have to verify how its been implemented in DF.
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Your concerns are certainly valid, and I agree with your points entirely (I'm Kasmos on the DF forums so I probably posted in the thread you're talking about).
Anyway, yes, right now there is full universal banking and I think it's a horrible thing. Most people don't carry anything valuable on them anymore and people just teleport around Agon, hitting PvP hotspots and then teleporting out.
So yes, your concern that Darkfall with full universal banking and such easy ways to teleport everywhere has turned the game into a huge counterstrike-style system.
However, the second expansion (coming soon) is adding the first step in local banking and I wouldn't be surprised if they address the fast travel issue as well. Either way, the game is still a hell of a lot of fun and seems like it's going to be fantastic after the upcoming expansion.
There are a lot of things wrong in DF (for example sound effects are horrible), but access to fast travel isn't one of them.
As you'll soon find out, every method of fast travel is balanced:
Bindstone recall, house recall, bindstone kick: You're unable to move (you can only look around) and you're making a lot of noise during 1-2 mins. You can use this skill only once every 30 mins. You can teleport only to the place where you are binded.
Runestones: You need to find them, or buy from other players for 100-200g. You make a lot of noise for 1 min, and you're unable to move. Then you appear at destination without any stamina or mana. You can't use rune when you're overencumbered.
Nexus portals: You need to find them, or buy from other players for 5000g. One person need to go to destination, to open portal exit. Portals can be destroyed by other players. There is cooldown after each person, before next person can use nexus. And nexus dissapears after some time.
All of them have their uses - but armies usually travel on mounts. It can take more than 30 mins to reach siege location, and each time you get killed you need to travel once again.
I am not sure how you measure "fast" travels..
My opinion is Darkfall has global banking and slow travel becoming a somewhat "medium" travel using mounts. There will be 2 locations you granted a teleport to, your bindstone and your possible house bindstone from housing. That is you regular teleportaton means.
Then there is one way runes but you have to visit the location and have to mark each rune. And a very rare nexus system.
Dev's decided it would be too much of a pain to be somewhere away from you home bound at a remote bindstone and no access to your belongings with a relative slow travel system.
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$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)
Your concerns are certainly valid, and I agree with your points entirely (I'm Kasmos on the DF forums so I probably posted in the thread you're talking about).
Anyway, yes, right now there is full universal banking and I think it's a horrible thing. Most people don't carry anything valuable on them anymore and people just teleport around Agon, hitting PvP hotspots and then teleporting out.
So yes, your concern that Darkfall with full universal banking and such easy ways to teleport everywhere has turned the game into a huge counterstrike-style system.
However, the second expansion (coming soon) is adding the first step in local banking and I wouldn't be surprised if they address the fast travel issue as well. Either way, the game is still a hell of a lot of fun and seems like it's going to be fantastic after the upcoming expansion.
Yeah you were one of the people who posted in the thread I linked. Are they planning on doing away with universal banking, is it up in the air at the moment? Because I have to say, the more I consider it, the more it becomes an obvious game breaking mechanic in my mind. Still I will give the game chance.
Fast travel isnt quite as easy as you may think it is.
You can mark a rune to a location, but its a one time use per person, so its not mass travel. I believe there are some clans that use the housing system to move around, but other than that its not quick.
Im still fairly new to DF and moving across eve's gallaxy is much quicker than moving across the world in DF.
Your concerns are certainly valid, and I agree with your points entirely (I'm Kasmos on the DF forums so I probably posted in the thread you're talking about).
Anyway, yes, right now there is full universal banking and I think it's a horrible thing. Most people don't carry anything valuable on them anymore and people just teleport around Agon, hitting PvP hotspots and then teleporting out.
So yes, your concern that Darkfall with full universal banking and such easy ways to teleport everywhere has turned the game into a huge counterstrike-style system.
However, the second expansion (coming soon) is adding the first step in local banking and I wouldn't be surprised if they address the fast travel issue as well. Either way, the game is still a hell of a lot of fun and seems like it's going to be fantastic after the upcoming expansion.
Yeah you were one of the people who posted in the thread I linked. Are they planning on doing away with universal banking, is it up in the air at the moment? Because I have to say, the more I consider it, the more it becomes an obvious game breaking mechanic in my mind. Still I will give the game chance.
Yes they said they may rethink their stance on global banks and the local banking from expansion is a test towards that.
-----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)
Your concerns are certainly valid, and I agree with your points entirely (I'm Kasmos on the DF forums so I probably posted in the thread you're talking about).
Anyway, yes, right now there is full universal banking and I think it's a horrible thing. Most people don't carry anything valuable on them anymore and people just teleport around Agon, hitting PvP hotspots and then teleporting out.
So yes, your concern that Darkfall with full universal banking and such easy ways to teleport everywhere has turned the game into a huge counterstrike-style system.
However, the second expansion (coming soon) is adding the first step in local banking and I wouldn't be surprised if they address the fast travel issue as well. Either way, the game is still a hell of a lot of fun and seems like it's going to be fantastic after the upcoming expansion.
Yeah you were one of the people who posted in the thread I linked. Are they planning on doing away with universal banking, is it up in the air at the moment? Because I have to say, the more I consider it, the more it becomes an obvious game breaking mechanic in my mind. Still I will give the game chance.
Universal banking is my only real gripe about Darkfall. I have been arguing against it since beta. It looks like we are seeing step one in the expansion towards local banking though, so that is hopeful. At the very least is unallied or war decced people should not be able to use your very own clan banks.
Yeah you were one of the people who posted in the thread I linked. Are they planning on doing away with universal banking, is it up in the air at the moment? Because I have to say, the more I consider it, the more it becomes an obvious game breaking mechanic in my mind. Still I will give the game chance.
Here is the recent Darkfall spotlight on local banking: http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=216927
Although I think adding local banking only to player houses is a poor way to test it, since I doubt anyone will use it since global banking will still be available, I do have hopes that the developers will realize the need of this in regards to many of the game's current problems. Hopefully they'll move to full local banking or very restricted global banking, but only time will tell.
Also with fast travel, there hasn't been much talk by the developers about what their stance on the issue is. Since they're changing the sea aspect of the game, potentially making sea travel faster a more viable option for travel, adding caravans, player owned vendors, and other things related to this issue, I wouldn't be surprised if the current situation of global banking and fast travel is not readdressed sometime soon.
Either way, Darkfall is a great game that is about to hopefully get phenomenal with this second expansion. I enjoy every minute I play (even when I'm killed!!! ) and from what they've showed us is coming in the expansion, this game is about to get epic.
LOL when i think people crying about a 20 minute way they need to go to the siege location and then think about local banking and someone dies on a remote location he bound to visit a friend and how he has to rebuy anything from simple tools and start making all the money needed again to just re - equip like the time he was starting the game the first time, well is understandable that the devs had some thoughts if it wasn't too "hardcore" for some like the magic "grind".
I say don't run too fast into local banking and face all the forum whiners about it..
-----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)
Well I played EVE for a couple of years a while back so I'll try and make a comparison.
Banking:
DFO = Universal
EVE = Local
Travel:
OK you have slow travel in both if you're going from one distant point to another. The difference between the standard travel (in my opinion) is that in DFO it's far more dangerous. In EVE you have empire space, also when you enter a system you know who is in the system and all their details. Traveling in a small fast ship it is very difficult to be killed (I played it for two years before you had warp to a gate at 0km! So I know guys). DFO there are no safe zones, no concord and no radar or alert to who is in your vicinity and no safe spots and no auto pilot.
Fast Travel:
You have runestones, that as Darth explained is a one shot deal to get you somewhere. Though you have to go there on foot/mount before to bind it. In EVE the equivelant is pod jumping, you also have fast travel via warp travel (forgoten the term exactly) using larger ships like a mothership. I'm not sure exactly how EVE is now but that was what it was like when I left.
I'm not certain what extras they've added to EVE since I last played, maybe there's a work around for the bank? But in short DFO is alot more dangerous to travel in, I think universal banking was to help the economy and reduce frustration. I think DFO would need alot more players before you could introduce local banking and have it work. EVE has the players, but as far as fast travel goes EVE has just the same but with a different name.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
I stated it many times before and do this again: local banking thoughter with centrelized ( mines, farms, woodyards etc. ) regional resources could be the key for never-ending conflict, diplomacy and trade between different factions who own them. They took a nice, lone player friendly approach to resources nodes which are gatherable everywhere, but it takes away the main reason of human conflicts: the struggle over limited resources.
I see what your saying. My main contention is that traveling should be very dangerous, and in many cases avoided. I don't think Guilds should be able to attack guilds on the other side of the map, or players be able to attack players on the other side of the map, with out risking a lot and making a big potential sacrifice.
I think, but I am willing to admit I might be wrong, that universal banking makes it so travel will rarely have to be dangerous in DFO. If I want to move from one guild city to the next, say I am changing guilds, I throw everything in the bank, get naked and run to the new city, if I get ganked on the way it only really costs me time. All my stuff will be there when I get to the other side, completely safe.
If it were local, people wouldn't move as much, they'd be much more scared to move and move valuables in caravans, much like how people do in eve, and this of course would be very risky. It would also open up a ton of new gameplay imo, caravan raiding, caravan protection etc. I also think it would make it so that players would become more region centric, which creates more of a community and helps foster empire building a rivalry. This would also make the DFO economy more interesting and all that stuff.
That's what I think any way
EDIT!
Also I don't think local banking would cause any major problems or increased player frustration, it would tie players to were ever they bank.
Like if I have a banking spot I like to use, I would also be able to make it so I res near by. This would make the game much much more strategic in my view, because then if you wanted to wage a campaign against a guild far away you would have to be very careful about managing your logistics, it would also make death just a bit more meaningful. If you get killed and get stuck 100 miles away, the people who killed you will feel rid of you, and you might think twice about going back there.
Your concerns are certainly valid, and I agree with your points entirely (I'm Kasmos on the DF forums so I probably posted in the thread you're talking about).
Anyway, yes, right now there is full universal banking and I think it's a horrible thing. Most people don't carry anything valuable on them anymore and people just teleport around Agon, hitting PvP hotspots and then teleporting out.
So yes, your concern that Darkfall with full universal banking and such easy ways to teleport everywhere has turned the game into a huge counterstrike-style system.
However, the second expansion (coming soon) is adding the first step in local banking and I wouldn't be surprised if they address the fast travel issue as well. Either way, the game is still a hell of a lot of fun and seems like it's going to be fantastic after the upcoming expansion.
Yeah you were one of the people who posted in the thread I linked. Are they planning on doing away with universal banking, is it up in the air at the moment? Because I have to say, the more I consider it, the more it becomes an obvious game breaking mechanic in my mind. Still I will give the game chance.
Its not as game breaking in DFO as it would be in EvE.
Your point about traveling not happening often would be vaild if DFO had as many people to kill as EvE does. Sometimes people have to move from one island to another just to find PvP in DFO, that doesn't happen in EvE.
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GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
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AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
IMO the system isnt "fast" . Lets point out the facts of travel in DFO.
1. Runestones.
They cost 400-500gold on trade channel.They are rare drops you get off of medium to harder mobs. They are 1 time use. They take up to 3minutes to use. They must be marked(a 5minute process) in the spot you want use to recall back to. You must have the teleport anchor skill :Skill Cost 5000 gold Skill Requirements 75 LesserMagic and 50GreaterMagic to mark the rune.
2. Nexus Portal system
They trade for 2k each. These are rare drops from chaos chests. You need both 1 entrance and 1 exit to active them. They can be used/walked through 10 times within a 2 hour window. And can be destroyed at anytime. Anyone can use them. 1 player must place the entrance and the same player must place the exit . After 1 person walks through the portal their is a 60second timer until the next person can use the portal.
These are rarely used but best used during sieges in out of the way locations.
3. House recall.
The cheapest house is a cottage currently trading around 25,000-30,000gold on trade channels.Their are a limited number of locations that you may own a house.You buy the houe recall spell for 500gold. You are then able to recall back to your house whenever you want . Takes 2-3minutes to recall. You are allowed to invite 1 guest to your house and they may also house recall to your house. All houses must pay a weekly gold tax for owning them.
4. Bindstone recall.
This recalls yourself back to your currently bound bindstone. Takes 2-3minutes to recall.
If your in a clan that happens to own 2 or 3 hamlets/cities then it is possible to use bindstone kicks. This will effectivly kick yourself from 1 of your owned properties to the next one. You must still recall to that bindstone.
5. Mounts
regular Mounts trade for 200-250gp. Battlehorn mount trade for around 800gp with a slight armor upgrade.They are limited in game buy needing the rare drop of steedgrass to create them.
Mounts are a must to travel anywhere outside of the noobie lands. The darkfall world is huge and on foot takes a long time.
Mounts increase travel speed by about 3-4x copared to your sprinting speed on foot. They can be killed pretty easily by mobs and players. and you need to heal them or risk having them killed eventually.
6. Boats.
Rafts cost around 2kgold to create. They are the cheapest and fastest way to travel on water. However their is no water on the mainland of AGON meaning you will only really be able to use boats to travel to the 4 islands. they are still not very fast even with the increased speed a few patchs ago. They are 3-4x faster then swimming.
I think this about covers all travel. I think they will be speeding up all boats and reducing their resource cost in the coming expansion this month as well as adding a 2nd advanced mount (possibly a weaker but faster one or a duo ridden one)
Overall travel is barely at a medium level. And not at all in the fast catergory. It is possible to take over cities/hamlets and effectivly control an island or area of the mainland for the most part.
there are several way to deal whit this issues and all of them are based on game design changing any of this will require something to compensate
the only problem i see whit universal banking is the lag you get when you open the bank my pc freeze for 3-4 seconds when i open my bank
BestSigEver :P
Universal banking is going to change.
Check the spotlight forums for villages, local banking and vendors, they are slowly introducing local banking but it seems they want to take this approach carefully. They seem after the addition of keeps (don't know how that will play out yet) in villages, the vendors, the slot machines etc etc and probably other things later on they have not revealed yet their going to introduce a full local economy that might be both rewarding exploration wise. Like embarking on a journey and you don't know what you will find and probably end up finding lots of things on the way, also would help for hotspots for PvP and marketing. Micropolitics etc etc might give the element of locality we get to (never see) in MMOs a chance.
if they indeed heading at that direction I am very eager!
I somewhat agree that universal banking is bad. But considering how "weird" DarkFall is and the constant need to bank your items at ALL time, I believe that Aventurine should stop modifying banking too much after the upcoming expansion. Local Village Bank is more than enough. Perhaps if there was a gold fee to transfer an item from 1 bank to another that would be fair though (based on item's weight)
But as far as Fast Running goes, it's necessary. The world itself is already fairly dangerous and should you want to use that teleport, you must first outrun your enemies and than cast the 2 minutes recall skill that makes tons of noise, you are unable to move, you have no choice but to hide to use these skills.
Recall is rarely used to escape from the enemies as I just mentionned, you have to outrun them before or you're pretty much dead. Most players simply use recalls to save time after they went very far, won the war, etc. Beside, should you be forced to cancel the Recall skill, there's a 5-10 minutes cooldown on it.
Just throwing this out there, but I've been on Yssam ever since I joined my clan 5 days ago, it feels very local and micro politics are blazing. We've been having some new guilds encroaching on our lands, and they recently took a hamlet on the far north of our island, so they're bringing us action every day to our city.
Tonight is the first night I ported off to go hunt with a buddy at his hamlet on the South-West island.
This is all true. Also EVE has a LOT of teleportation - cynos and cyno generation arrays - you can get large amounts of stuff moved anywhere in a jiffy with a jump freighter.
I agree Darkfall ould be better with local banking and some kind of courier quest creating system in-game so that people who don't want to ship their own goods can pay for others to ship them.
This is all true. Also EVE has a LOT of teleportation - cynos and cyno generation arrays - you can get large amounts of stuff moved anywhere in a jiffy with a jump freighter.
I agree Darkfall ould be better with local banking and some kind of courier quest creating system in-game so that people who don't want to ship their own goods can pay for others to ship them.
Good discussion here people thanks for contributing. Sounds like quick travel may not be as bad as I initially thought, I'll have to see how it treats me.
I still think the universal banking is a problem, and I think that when they move to fully local banking this game is going to really come into it's own.
As for the eve quick traveling, this is true, but you cannot move players (well you can with titans, but that takes years of worth of money and training to be able to do, and can be VERY risky), and it take like 6 months of specialized training to be able to fly such a ship, plus they are supper expensive. I think if they made it to that teleporting in DF required some safracifice of specialization that would be pretty cool.
Also if you open a cyno in hostile area, every one in the system can warp right on top of it.
But again, great discussion here, the DFO community is not what every one else says about you.
I've had great experiences with the in-game community so far. Atleast from my clans alliance.
Yeah I think DFO community is for the most part a great group of people. But they do have a bad rep among other games communities, I suspect this will change in time. Might just the full loot/pvp game thing, people who don't know how to deal with it blame the community for playing the game. Silly.