Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
New: Paragus Q&A with DFO Developers
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs.cfm/blogId/13/entry/6540
Awesome job Paragus. I loved the screenshots too.
Some of my favorite highlights....
17) What can we expect to see happen to Archery to make it more attractive as a primary play-style? - Rok Strike, Dark Hand of Valor
What we said in the question above, also, we’re going to offer more weapon types and ammunition types for archers
29) Can we have the option to place vendors at player hamlets/cities? - Asnar Grafton, MoD
Most likely, this is under consideration.
45) Are there any plan to introduce ambient and environmental sounds (wind, rain / waterfalls, wildlife etc.) ? - Phoboss Woodblade
There was a spotlight on this topic, along with a teaser video here:
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthr...p?t=251965
Darkfall will soon feature one of the most advanced environmental sound systems. We think it’s quite amazing. It’s difficult to get the full effect from the video, but this addition will considerably improve the user experience.
46) What is AV's take on the current Darkfall population and what plans are being implemented to increase the active playerbase of Darkfall. - Type Forced, Undead Lords
This is our slower season for player activity and there have been ups and downs in active accounts in the past, but we’re currently growing at a pretty steady rate with the free trial going, Darkfall being offered on digital distribution channels, various local partnerships, and many other initiatives we’re working on should help the population to keep growing.
47) Pre-beta there was talk of roaming mobs who would gain experience from others mobs or players they killed and would eventually spawn a small army of mobs around them and be able to attack player cities. Is there any plan for ever getting this into the game? Tyrelan Theel - VAMP
Actually we’re working in this direction, the summer expansion is mostly about PvE. Darkall’s monsters already gain skill and there are many more plans along these lines which should be implemented very soon.
49) Do you plan on revamping the placement of house in the near future or just adding new villages/new spot in existing villages? - Owh Wooah, Covert Operations
Yes we’re adding both new villages and housing slots.
54) Are there currently any plans for alternative methods of travel on land, specifically in the forms of stage coaches or chariots? - Rigan Peer, Nomads
No plans currently but we’re considering adding a portal system.
55) It is currently virtually impossible for a player to be a successful full-time crafter due to basic materials (wood, iron ore, herbs, etc.) and armor / weapons being easier to come by through killing mobs than gathering and crafting; Are there any plans to make full-time crafting more viable and lucrative as a playstyle? - Kimoshu Grakenshalmn
We have specific plans to considerably improve crafting, We’re adding craftable only items, rare ores to metal nodes, and we’re always evaluating and looking for new ways to boost crafting..
57) Are there any plans to make EVERY spell useful by rebalancing their damage, AOE, projectile speed, mana cost, cast time etc, or adding powerful secondary effects (knockbacks, blinds) to bring them up to par with other spells of the same category? - Bomanz Beezlebub, ZzZzZ
We’re currently running evaluations of all spells in the game. We’ve recently added more dedicated designers to the team to do this, as well as to help evaluate the balance and the usefullness of everything in the game. You should start seeing improvements in all areas.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Comments
Some good questions in there --- but seeing as how this is a PvE expansion alot of PvP related questions happened to crop up.
Two crucial PvE questions were missed:
Where's the damn wandering monsters?
Where's the damn ecology?
Yeah. To me theres no point in having a huge open world if all of the spawns are static.
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
Question #47 and answer addressed static mobs. We'll have to see. I agree, would be much more fun with roaming mobs and changing spawn points.
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Pretty much agree with all the rages on ForumFall, this Q&A has been a major let-down and clearly show that AV doesn't understand what a large part of their community wants (Especially question 40,48,50,54,....which made me rage when I read those, especially 40)
As for 46, it's just marketing tactics, can't blame them though.
I pretty much agree with all the positive responses on forumfall and in the game,
My favorite post on that spotlight thread at forumfall is this one.
Lord Jenicus'- Wrote:
can't believe how many asinine replies to this thread there are, the only thing wrong with Darkfall in my opinion is it's poor community, that stems mostly from the fact that this game incorporates multiple genres together, and fans of one genre want to change it to fit their specific genre taste, instead of accepting it as being what it is.
FPS Die-hards whine about grind and want more instant gratification
RTS Die-hards whine about the strategic meta-game surrounding politics becoming more streamlined and thus "less immersive"
RPG Die-hards whine about consistent class imbalances and lack of customization
Social MMO Die-hards whine about lack of immersion and interactivity with the environment.
I could go on, but you get the idea, everyone will always be at each other's throats on these subjects because what one party screams needs to be changed one way, another party will scream that it needs to be changed another.
To put it perfectly honest, after reading the whole Q&A I was rather pleased and am looking forward to playing DF2010.... Good job AV, regardless of your dissident followers who haunt these threads picking apart and spinning every tiny comment to suit their own gluttinous desire to be confrontational and unsatisfied, you do still have some true fans who are excited for the new changes coming!
Thank you -CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
I'm really looking forward to jumping back in with Darkfall. If it wasn't for CCP and bloody EVE, I'd be a playing DF and nothing else.
Number 45 is something I've desired since my first days of playing. Can't wait to return to Agon.
"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
Perhaps you missed it but PureBlood made a great reply to Lord. I don't need to add anything to what he said.
A lot of these changes doesn't contradict each other:
- Improving the user interface
- Character diversity
- Falling damage killing you
- Better clan/alliance tools
- More true sandbox elements
- Less randomness in PVP (fizzles, ...)
- Fixing the alignment system
- Improving economy
- Improving crafting
There's different opinions on a few, though::
- Instant travel or not?
- Should siege messages be global or local (you get to know it when entering a city or zone that there's a siege timer on)?
...but when AV think the alignment system is "adequate", don't even see what people are fussing about when it comes to global messages, "don't feel the love" because people aren't embracing Fun Hulks, don't see the randomness introduced by fizzles... then you can't blame that on different people wanting different things.
Sure, it takes time fixing this stuff, but the first step is acknowledging the problems. Then you stake out a course and tell your customers about it. You don't go around pretending they don't exist.
We all love the game and that's why it's so sad to see the bad communication (both listening and talking) practices AV has adopted.
Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to DF2010 as well, but I was hoping they'd change more things. You know, stuff that belongs in a total rewamp like DF2010, but that they apparently don't even consider to be real problems atm.
All PureBlood did was prove Lord's point; nothing more. A certain number of players are just discontents and will always be that way. Sorry if that appears cynical, but it's what I've observed over time. I'm just glad I'm not one of them in the game I play and enjoying the ride by a developer who we all know made a game "they" would like to play and for those who find it fun, it's available. Good times.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Lot of people seem to agree regarding Siege Messages : http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=256046
As for Instant Travel, from most of the replies against the removal of Instant Travel methods, a lot of players have often not read the entire suggestions, and rather jumped to an early conclusion. Most suggestions regarding the removal of instant travel system adds significant difference to traveling time (faster mounts, caraven to carry goods, etc) and also add Local Banking for a bigger impact on the economy.
Most players I've seen that were against removal of instant travel stopped at just that "Removal of instant travel" and didn't bother reading any further, nor understand the reasoning behind it. The common reply being "I don't want to ride for an hour to get to somewhere, I have a life", when the suggestion actually provides means for players to roam around Agon at faster speed than the current method (mount) to adress this issue. The effect also crowds the world of Agon a little more as players must travel, which means more PvP encounter, and more risk when traveling with a bunch of goods for a trade. But they ignore that, too much risk.
They'd rather enter an enemy city, use their bank to take out their ship, spawn the ship next to the enemy holding and cannon their walls down! Damn that's the hardcore! Problem is that people are used to do this, and now can't imagine doing otherwise. It's hard to change that kind of mentality.
I could care less how many people post what on a message board and not about to count the pros & cons. There is certainly a huge disconnect between how people feel in the game and what some post on the boards. As you should be well aware, the vast majority of players do not post on the messgae boards. Personally I love the global messages. Agon is huge; not every one is in a large alliance or an alliance at all. The global messages are simply a real time feature of a poltical map.
Cheers -CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
others like me don't give 2 cents about global messages. The dev team has far more important things to work on than changing some global message because some short sighted person got thier panties in a wad.
People complained about not "having enough sand" now that they are gettign sand they complain about something else.
One thing for certain:
You can please all of the peole some fo the time.
You can please some fo the people all of the time.
You can never, ever, please all of the people all of the time.
I for one think the emphais is in the right place. I just wish the expansions came more quickly. These expansions are what will keep the game alive. As with any game a new expansion will bring back old players and attract new ones.
I am with madness on this..some answers have been formulated.. very unfortunate..community had hoped for more on spot communication and direction. Don't know why they need to hold back exact information on expansion at this point..
-----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)
Understnading that not everyone uses english as a first languange will get you very far in the world.
From Tasos:
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=256293
I decided to post this followup because we felt that our answers in the recent Q&A failed to register and our intentions seemed to be misunderstood by a segment of the community.
The problem we faced with the questions asked is that they were mostly about topics we cannot discuss yet and that’s why it took us a while to deliver it. Rather than to not respond or to avoid answering most of them, we decided out of respect for the community to address every single question as best as we could. Some people mention that Syncaine’s recent posts about his visit to Aventurine are more informative than the community QA. A part of it was because through the interaction with us he was able to ask the right questions.
Before I go into the content within the Q&A, I have to explain that when we say that we’re looking into something, or considering, or have plans for, it doesn’t mean that we’re being evasive or diplomatic in our answers. If that was our intention, we simply wouldn’t answer. It means that we’re trying to give you actual insight or confirmation on what we can’t go into detail about. These statements are supported by a sequence of events that has taken place at Aventurine involving a number of Darkfall developers doing real work, a lot of planning and meetings taking place, infrastructure being designed and implemented, testing, documentation, community feedback taken into consideration, player feedback, support tickets, bug reports etc. depending on what we’re talking about. There’s a professional pipeline in place. Even when we say there are no plans for something, like an alliance bank for example, the process has still run its course and we’ve decided against it.
When we post something about upcoming features publicly, anything, it gets multiple authorizations before it goes out and there’s nothing informal about it. The specific QA replies were collaboration between Claus Grovdal, and Kjetil Helland and myself. There’s real information in the Q&A and a lot more insight to be found than skimming quickly through it might reveal:
Darkfall’s expansion was delayed due to a testing failure in a major feature we decided to add to it. There was an announcement about this and our newest estimate is one month with an effort to make it sooner. This won’t delay further development and on that topic, we are running parallel development of Darkfall and Darkfall 2010. This means that there are two different development efforts going on at the moment. We regret that the expansion was delayed repeatedly, but it’s only because we’re trying to deliver more than expected.
We mention that we’ve added new designers to the team to help the design team test and evaluate the balance of literally everything in the game and make all the necessary changes, improvements, and adjustments needed. This means everything: skills, spells, items, damage output, loot tables, various mechanics etc. Imagine how the results from this effort can impact the game, add to it that your feedback is very important in this process and you should be able to understand better what we’re trying to do here.
Prestige classes are the largest feature ever added to Darkfall and will definitely change the face of the game. The final design for them is complete. From here we go to the technical design, implementation, testing, evaluation, more testing etc. Sounds like this will take forever but it won’t. The functionality is all there. We cannot announce how many prestige classes there will be when they’re released because everything is subject to change from names, to skills, spells, requirements, and some may not even make it out of testing. There will be, however, a good variation of them offered at release and we’ll keep adding new ones. Prestige classes will be getting a full presentation of their own before long. Until then, a lot of people at Aventurine, even some of the developers don’t know more than you do right now.
Getting a Darkfall box out is underway and Darkfall is available now through most digital download channels and we’re in talks to get it on more of them. Each one of these initiatives in terms of effort is like a commercial re-launch of the game and requires a lot of work by a lot of people in many areas and a lot of coordination of several companies around the world.
Several new spells and alignment changes to the way you gain or lose alignment are on their way. These are generally considered important additions to a game. We also mention in the QA that we’ll reward mages for being mages and not simply through removing fizzle from spells. This is and should be big news for mages.
Villages and Sea Fortresses are getting more improvements. Recent improvements to Sea Fortresses were major additions to the game based on community feedback and suggestions, and future improvements to villages are as well. For example, we’ve already mentioned in a recent interview that players who cap a village will split the reward between themselves and the clan, and there’s more. We’ve also taken the community feedback on the Sea Fortress timing issue and we’re looking into it. We also confirm that new villages and housing slots will be made available.
We mentioned that we’re adding more PvP centric additions on land other than the villages and this brief mention hides significant features we cannot discuss yet, but the fact we can’t expand on these doesn’t mean they aren’t coming.
Darkfall’s user interface is being remade. This means we’re throwing away the old interface and a brand new one is being designed and coded from scratch. An interface for a game like Darkfall can take years to make, it’s a major development effort. We’ve been working on it for a long time now and everything we’ve learned so far is going into this, including a lot of your feedback. We believe that it will greatly improve the user experience.
We’re actively working on differentiating the races and this is a large ongoing project within Aventurine. We’re working on making races more unique and enhancing the racial element of the game; there’s consistency in the work being done in this area. It’s a balancing act but we feel that a pronounced racial element will greatly enhance the game and we hope that you agree. Someone posted that the question was simply asking if we’ll offer a race change option, in which case, we’ve already announced that we will. The Mahirim 4 legged run, mentioned in the Q&A, is still alive. As far as functionality it’s complete down to the final animations. We hope to be able to use this as soon as all races have something equally as cool and useful. It won’t be easy, and it’s a process, but whether we succeed or not, the last statement should give you an idea of how much there is in store as far as racial differentiation goes.
We mentioned that waves may be added to the sea. This may not sound like much on its own unless you take into account the tactics behind it. Add the possibility of weather impact on sailing a ship and the dynamic changes completely. Imagine yourself in a naval battle behind a cannon in a stormy sea bobbing up and down as your captain is having a hard time steering into the wind as he’s fighting to get positioning on your enemies. We’ve taken a lot of steps towards improving the naval element, and we’ll keep supporting that..
Archers are getting new weapon types and ammo types and they’re also getting secondary skills in connection to prestige classes. I didn’t think we needed to explain this statement, but in retrospect we should have put more emphasis on “new weapon types” and “new ammo types”. And to explain even further: right now archers have just one weapon type: the bow, and one ammo type: the arrow.
Concerning the global messaging system, we like that players can know in real-time what’s going on in the world. We like that there’s risk in making certain decisions. There are drawbacks to be sure but in our pros and cons list, the pros outweigh the cons. Are we open to considering making adjustments to this? Of course we are, if we believe it’s what’s best for the game and for the majority of the players.
About player deaths to falling damage, we don’t like it and we’ve tested this a lot. Players in early beta may recall that you could die to falling, something that we quickly removed. Dying in a full loot game, with a lot of elevation you can access freely, due a misstep or lag, can be extremely annoying. Are you prepared to die to falling damage once every so often and possibly lose everything you’ve got? It’s not like you don’t take falling damage now, and if someone is abusing the system during PvP, it should be easier in most cases for his opponents to kill him than gravity. As with the global messages, nothing is carved in stone but please allow us to have a strong opinion now and again.
We’re rolling out a political map and several other clan tools. We also have several plans for additions to clan cities and we’re working on implementing various types of clan insignia. What’s behind the previous statement should be pretty big news for clans.
We announced that we’re working in the direction of mobs leveling up, and mobs attacking player cities. We didn’t mention this in the Q&A but this should be in the next expansion plus a lot more as far as PvE goes. We’re mentioning it now because it was confirmed to me today.
There was a whole feature about the ambient sound system which should be one of the best in MMOs and that’s why we didn’t go into detail about it, however the feature itself and the supporting video were inspired by the Q&A question.
We’re moving towards more end-game PvE content with the total dungeon revamp. Again this is a huge undertaking in several stages and a big change to the game. We also stated that we’re adding new dungeons.
A portal system is being evaluated to make sure that it will be good for the game.
We confirmed that we’re working on more character customizations like dyes. We also restated our strong commitment to boost crafting with significant additions to the game along the lines of the recently announced addition of rare ores to metal nodes, and adding a very large number of craftable-only items.
Keep in mind that all this is running concurrently in different stages in the pipeline. These are not long-term plans. Consider that there’s a lot more in the pipeline than what we’ve talked about here, things that we haven’t announced yet. This is not a wish-list; these are things we’re putting a lot of work into as we speak.
Perhaps we could have spelled things out more in the Q&A, but consider that we’re working very hard at the moment, we’re also missing a few people who are taking their vacations, and we don’t feel comfortable at all going into details before it’s time. As for the timing, we’re busting our asses to get these things done right as soon as possible and that’s the best I can give you outside of what you already know. This Q&A mostly touched on to-be-announced items. There will be proper announcements and spotlight features on everything as they become ready.
Thank you for reading
The whole rage around the Q&A serves it's purpose. Aventurine appears to have "woke up" a little, and made this wonderful Follow-up. That's how the Q&A should've been. At least this one was very informative and you can tell in which direction AV is going.
One thing I really liked in this follow-up, is mobs that will attack player city, which is something that I had suggested a few weeks ago. The only thing missing is for those mobs to be able to siege player city, and then we have a system that makes it harder for larger clans to own more Cities than they can defend.