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Darkfall - A Critical Review from a Skeptic
StrixMaxima
Member UncommonPosts: 865
OK, then, here we go.
A little background first: I played at Launch. It was bad. I shall not comment about it in details, since anyone can do a quick search and read about what transpired back then.
Since I'm in a MMO hiatus and I finished Dragon Age, my MMO thumb started scratching again. Since I've read that things in DFO got a lot better, I decided to check that myself. Aventurine has to thank my Christmas bonus for that, too 
Purchase:
Well, I can honestly say that the website now looks MUCH better than before. When I bought the EU version back then, I felt a tingle of fear that I'd get ripped off and my CC number would be used to buy rockets in some unfriendly nation. It was crude, amateurish and it's a small miracle that the game survived that period.
Site now looks clean and I bought the US client without a hassle. Quick and easy, as it should be. I downloaded the client during the night, and it took about 7 hours for the 9 GB client. I expected that I could patch the game before signing up, but that wasn't the case.
So, download is going on as I type. Since I'll have some spare time in the next few days, I'll be able to play quite a bit. I'll try to analyze the game's evolution fairly, and show a bit of "now and then" for color.
My review will be based on Mirdain Race, US server. Bear with me. I'll keep this updated as frequently as possible.
Comments
Nice.
Wish I could get a better patch speed. I still have almost 5 gigs to download and it's been going since 8PM last night. Looks like it's going to be over 24 hours to get this thing patched. Being DC'd for the maintenance this morning didn't help either.
This royally sucks :-/
Anyhoo... looks like I'll be starting as Mirdain when I get in as well. Perhaps I'll look you up as well.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Yes, my overall DL speed was quite fast, and the game is patching at a nice pace. Some 20 minutes more I should be in the game. Mind you, I live in Brazil, and our ISPs around here are far from luminary. This is something I'll also take into consideration when reviewing the game.
As soon as I have a name, I'll put it here. Feel free to contact me (but not gank me
).
That means i can ninja loot all from you as i got nice ping :P Nice ping + click skills (from Diablo2) = Owned!
EvE doors
See the best doors on EvE-on!
Did you purchase 2 clients? because if you had your old euro client they are still allowing free transfers. Might want to tell them your predicament if that is the case and possibly see if they will give you a refund or game time.
So you would be the welcoming committee then? :-p
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
So I heard, gotha. However, since I've bought the EU client with friends (we were scouts for our gaming group), I preferred to buy myself one for my own. This way, if they want to come back, they already have at least 1 account to do so.
It'll also help me to assess the new player experience, since the other character had some game time behind it.
Thanks for the tip, though.
EDIT: OK, patching is over. Let's do this
Yes, my overall DL speed was quite fast, and the game is patching at a nice pace. Some 20 minutes more I should be in the game. Mind you, I live in Brazil, and our ISPs around here are far from luminary. This is something I'll also take into consideration when reviewing the game.
As soon as I have a name, I'll put it here. Feel free to contact me (but not gank me
).
Well for starters, you'll likely be in game long before I am. Besides that, I'm not the ganking type. I'm the type who goes after the lowbie gankers... while trying not to be ganked myself. Actually would bring back some fond memories of L2 back when people still haunted the lowbie areas when I did the same thing.
The irony of being called a "carebear" for going after someone only slightly weaker than me, after they'd just spent their afternoon going after brand-new players who barely knew what they were doing yet - the equivalent of killing level 1 mobs at level 10 - never got old. "Just doing my part to keep the newbie area free of idiots" is what I'd tell them
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
OK, Strix Maxima was born
Let's do a quick analysis, first:
Download and Patching:
Done without issues. All in all, it took about 8 hours at the average speed of 300 kb/s. Not bad. No errors or glitches of any kind.
Sounds and Graphics:
First, my PC:
Core 2 Duo 3.0
4 GB of DDR2 800 RAM
ATI 4850 1GB Sapphire
Quite the average machine.
Graphics: Probably the one of the game's most glaring weak links. The Mahirim area is rather bland. Architecture is your average elf-ey Celtic-entwined buildings. Since they were creating the lore from scratch, I think they could have given a more individual feel to them. Or simply call them Elves and be done with it. I didn't like the color palette the first time around, and I didn't notice any improvement. Lots of clipping, floating grass, and rough corners. Also, the topography is very linear, with angular slopes that frankly belong to a game in the past. Lighting effects and shadows did fare better, though, and are probably better than what I remembered. The character model is nice, but the animations are still very stiff. Very, very stiff.
Sounds are, well, bad. Simple and amateurish.
Having said that, I think you probably get used to the graphics over time, and here and there you can see some nice stuff, such as the night/day transition. The night sky and moon are done quite well, and are immersive. Also, I do understand the choice of "graphics X action", and I believe that they chose correctly. I simply wanted a little more personality.
Finally, I'm also having a little texture clipping bug, where I can "see" the seams between game cells. It's represented by a texture artifact in form of lines that look to be deep underground. I don't remember having that in the ole days. Nothing gamebreaking, but a little annoying.
Game performance on High graphics with anisotropic and Triple Buffering on was quite good, around 40 - 60 PFS. I'll fiddle with the settings more later on.
Netcode:
It was always a strong point of the game, and it continues good. Ping is an average 180, and I felt no interference from it at all. Everything is smooth, so far. Aventurine hit the nail on the head, here.
UI:
It's counterintuitive and gets in the way. This is one of the areas they could improve the most, I think. I'll get used to it (like I did the first time around), but it could be much more friendly. You can customize it to a certain degree, which is a good thing.
First moments in the game:
After equipping that amazing leafblade (smirk), I took the time to set the GUI and remember the basics. Since I barely knew the Mahirim area, I walked around to see where's everything. Got my first two quests from the Councillor, and then I proceeded to the farthest Goblin camp indicated by the quest. I have to say that I didn't see a soul around, friend or foe. Mind you, that's not bad, since I was a chicken with a broken neck for the first few minutes
OK, after a short walk I found a spot with several Scouts and a Fighter. I managed to kill 7 of them without much of a hassle, and thus managing to get the 4 Axes for the newbie quest, as well as the required corpses. Loot was ok: several newbie bows and shields, and 1 Rank 10 Bow, 2 Shortswords and 2 Round Shields. Also, a piece of Cloth armor and an amazing Rat on a Stick. I'm saving that!
There's a satisfying feel of playing a game that simply throws you in the world and pats you on the back. I also can see why it can be daunting for many people, specially those without Elder Scrolls or PVP MMO experience. I managed to get my first skill ranks in Sword, Run, Swim, Rest and a few others, and this I can attest: the grind has really been reduced, and a lot. This is a good thing for newbies, and it pushes you forward to your next skill level. It's a good, visceral feeling.
So far, no deaths for me. I managed to best the little buggers with little effort, and I can say that the AI is not as luminary as some might suggest here in the forum. It's basically some routines based on distance, damage taken, and current health. It's ok, not amazing, not bad.
Back to the game, now, since I'll do some walking about. I'll keep this updated.
Trashkiller,
Darkfall will be changing alot in the next year. You think they didn't notice that the bumped up PVE is increasing their subs? When you're gone in a year and I'm still playin, then you have room to talk.
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I wouldn't worry about trashkiller, forum alts aren't overly threatening.
edit: I like the reveiw though, great job so far OP
Darkfall is an awesome game, but with a community willing to do anything to win. I've recently stopped playing DF because I felt there was no way an honest person or clan could affect the game world. All the large alliances / clans do is hack or exploit to ensure they don't lose their holdings. I love the politics in the game, but I refuse to be part of any alliance or clan that supports any form of exploiting the game. Macroing I can live with, but I just can't deal with knowing honest players in DF can never make a difference in the political landscape.
Anyone playing the game or just starting just gets sucked into the current alliances, and I know a lot of them are honest players. But he leadership of these groups must know what certain members of their group is doing and they simply don't care.
Full Sail University - Game Design
I wouldn't take him too seriously, looks like someone's shiny new alt trying to stir things up a bit. You'll find more than an adequate amount of people within the DF community that will be more than happy to help you get started. You will however meet a few choice D-bags, I'm not going to lie. I've seen them though in pretty much all the mmos I've played over the years.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Keep it on topic guys. There's no evidence of 'alt' accounts in this thread.
Hey Strix thank you for putting in the effort to do this, I think having a former player who has always been vocal give the game a second go is good and I hope you truly your enjoy yourself this time around, wether the game is for you or not, who knows but I hope you at least have fun with it.
As for the graphics and sound....I was a bit put off by them when I first got into into the game and coming from Aion...it was a big shocker. It is funny though because honestly I find the world to be really gorgeous and being hand crafted it really shows with all the small details the world is full of. My biggest gripe and I guess this has nothing to do with graphics but would be I would love to see more "life" to the world. Adding in animal life was a step in the right direction, now lets see these truly amazing cities (some of the best I seen in a mmo) come to life.
I played Aion the other day and as weird as it may sound, the graphics did not appeal to me as much since playing DF. I felt so boxed in the world and saw how often everything was a copy paste of textures and layouts, it felt so...fake. DF is very organic feeling, it feels much more like a world and looks it as well. Not saying Aion is ugly!! It is not but I am saying after playing DF for a while, I see Aion graphics a lot differently now.
Sound needs work. I mean the backround ambient music I think works well but attack sounds and stuff could use some more. Positional audio however works really well! The other day I was harvesting wood and heard what sounded like many mounted foot steps coming from the north towards me. So I ran and hid behind a tree and coming from that direction I heard them was 3 mounted Alfar. I really do like that aspect of the sound.
Anyways I look forward to reading more from you!
Nice to see someone with an open mind giving DFO a second chance.
"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
Some extra points:
Crafting and Harvesting:
A definite improvement. It's not that click-clicky nightmare that it once was, much smoother. It was one of the main reasons I didn't do crafting back then. Now it's another possibility for me. I'll explore this further on.
I was able to purchase Bowyer already, and I'll start creating some stuff to get the hang of it.
Environment:
The addition of wildlife helps to create the sensation of an organic world that was sorely missing in the past. I still think the game is kinda barren, but it's definitely better. I actually got freaked out by a badger that ran through brushes by my side while I was harvesting wood! It was a good, healthy scare.
I wandered about a bit more, and I found a place or two that looked actually quite nice. The Bloom Lighting effects help to flesh out the place.
Found some 5 Chaos Chests, 3 with money (125 Gold, I think), and 2 with Greater Health Potions. It's a nice little thing to have for the explorer in me. Every little bit helps.
PVE:
I can already slaughter Goblins with a good degree of impunity. Respawn is still a bit too fast for my taste, but whatever. I'll try to craft some basic armor and look for greater challenges and rewards.
So far I stuck with Sword 'n Board, with great success, basically to use the plentiful resources that are available to me via Goblin corpses. I plan to move shortly to Knives. Shame the Dual-Wield is still working so-so: You cannot equip 2 different daggers, but a single one becomes one dagger in each hand. It would be nice to have more wielding variety.
I also did a little Archery, also with success. I'll first accumulate a good amount of ammo before going full Archery.
No spell cast so far. I got a Mirdain Staff just in case. But I'll try to have as little magic as I can.
Chat:
I cannot say for other races, but the Mirdain chat channels are quite civil, so far. Doubts and answers, the occasional joke and red alert. Same goes to trade. It was a welcome change from the foul chat the game once had. I'll know that I'll come across the odd angry jerk, but since it's the exception and not the norm (so far), I'm pleasantly surprised.
Population:
Very low, so far. Saw a couple of Mirdain around and a single naked Dwarf running around the city. No rednames so far, thus, no PVP. Which is good, because I'm obviously not ready yet.
More updates later on.
Pop seems hit and miss for me, sometimes my newbie area is packed other times it is a ghost town, prime time or not all seems random. I imagine a lot of the pop are in clan cities though.
I also love Chaos Chests!! Last night I was looking for rocks to get Iron from and had to venture rather far. Well I found some but hear a great deal of fighting in a ravine near me. So I sneak up and look and see 3 players killing...something or other. I sneak away and decide to move a little further down to another ore node...as I do so in the open I see a chest...
Ran to it, and I got 100ish gold and a Large Villa deed! I ran FAST to bank it and now I am pondering to sell it or hold onto it. Was a huge rush finding it and then running and watching all around me for enemies so I can bank it lol.
I hate your guts now!
"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
Yes, I was hoping for some sort of housing deed from the chests. But it would be a little too much luck on my first day back in the game, hehe. But I'm patient. Can't complain, since I've got the mount weed as my 3rd harvested item from the first herbalism bush.
I hate your guts now!
I picture you giving him the same look that Gary Numan is giving all of us in your avatar. Frankly I wouldn't blame you
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Just curious, how does one sell something like a villa deed w/o getting ganked in DF?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"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
I hate your guts now!
I picture you giving him the same look that Gary Numan is giving all of us in your avatar. Frankly I wouldn't blame you
That's a pretty fair desription, the amount of those chests I've found hoping for a deed and just some shitty gold. Along with the battle I had today fighting 3 Dwarves and nearly killed one to get wasted by a ****ing troll that hit me from behind!!!!!
TASOS, WHY HAST THOU FORESAKEN ME?
"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
Just curious, how does one sell something like a villa deed w/o getting ganked in DF?
Very carefully.
hah yea, my heart skipped a beat when I found it.
I had thought to keep it but a guildie told me it is something like 700g upkeep and as a total noob...no way I can afford that so he said to sell it. As for selling it that is the most scary part! I am in NEW and was told to sell it in our guild city by the bank, with guild members there to help make sure it goes smoothly.
For now I am holding onto to so I can skill up a bit and not be one shot by someone who has that kind of gold to buy it lol.
Great job on the review, hoping to read more later.
And the deed is for a house right? Sounds pretty cool.