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This type of game has been done before
Just look at Shadowbane. I am playing Shadowbane now. It has the lore, a good class set up, and a good PvP system with player ran cities that can be take. The graphics were okay for its day and age, so why did this game fail? How do you know Darkfall won't suffer the same fate as Shadowbane? Shadowbane seems like a good and fun game as it is now, but yet it's not booming like the following of Darkfall is.
I heard the game had a rough release and had lots of bugs, but the game now is not anywhere near as bad as it was at release according to the players who've played since the beginning. Maybe I am missing it, but it seems that the playerbase is happy with the game and I don't read any real complaints anywhere on the forums like you do on most MMORPG forums.
So if Darkfall has such a large following, how come people aren't playing Shadowbane? Hell, it's even free now. Is it the graphics? The point and click movement? Or is it something else?
Comments
Many DF followers do play SB and im sure DF is well known in SB community, but the game is just bit too simple for my taste... so thats my excuse for not playing it anymore.
What ive heard SB failed because it didnt work. Bugs, lag, game crashing and mouse movement are the reasons people lost interest. Darkfall can easily go down the same road but the main reason why people are so interested in Darkfall is because it offers more complex and advanced game world than any other game. Theres just so much more than just pvp in it.
Darkfall is supposed to be a lot different from Shadowbane. Shadowbane is all about the pvp. There is not much else to do. The crafting system sucks, the PVE sucks, there isn't much to do except pvp or run a city...and running a city gets very boring very fast. The pvp is on another level than any other mmo out, no doubt about that. And the character advancement system is as good as a level based system can get. The problem with the original release was obviously the bugs and the lag. The problem with getting new players now is the graphics suck, movement is unlike the other popular mmos right now, and the community loves feasting on unexperienced players. Try playing a WASD game for a while, then switching back to shadowbane...it is awkward. Then imagine trying to do it if you never played before.
Darkfall is supposed to be a game with a pvp system even more unforgiving than shadowbane (excpet in sieges, where it is a little more forgiving), and also some decent pve, and a bunch of tradeskills. Not only that, but it is a skill based system which is the only way to improve upon shadowbane's level based system.
Really Darkfall is more like pre-tram UO in a huge 3d world with 6 different races, real-time combat (think Oblivion unless you have played Mount and Blade), and supposively different factions within those races...oh and sieges. I am sure the df devs are doing everything they can not to repeat any of shadowbane's mistakes. If Darkfall works as intended (the devs have insisted they won't release the game until it is ready)...it will not suffer the same fate shadowbane did. It might not attract the WoW/EQ2 community which will probably get divided up between WaR, Vanguard, and AoC...but I bet a majority of the L2, SB, and UO communities will be there. And there are a bunch of us, who like me have retired from MMOs until DF comes out.
Three reasons:
1) Newcomers find it hard to group with other people,which is vital for gaining levels fast. With the removal of the global chat,moreso. A lot of people are unresponsive or are alts of the established guilds in-game. You really have to find a guild to be honest,but I bet that's also hard to acquire. Basically,a seemingly unhelpful atmosphere at the beginning,and no obvious way to communicate with responsive types.
2) Emphasis on templates,to go with bugged skills (and generally a bugged game). Nuff said. Follow the template for your class,or you're gimped. Some skills don't do well in PvP/work at all. Some classes are also 'overpowered' in PvP. Some are 'gimped' (Rangers?). I had to follow my Ranger template down to a point when I bothered playing.
3) Keyclone and alt-itis. That group you are levelling with; are they really two people or just one person using a second healbot character? There's so much use of alts and keycloning that it ruins the game for some and is ridiculous.
The fact that Shadowbane is F2P is probably why it's still being played by some,and for the rest because they have established dominant guilds on Mourning. (only good server left) Darkfall won't have alt-itis/keycloning (hopefully),no skill templates to follow down to a cue,and hopefully a more helpful atmosphere for people. And with less bugs too.
Being a shadowbane player for more then 2 years I say the game is fun. But it gets old. Shadowbane at release was much different then shadowbane today. They had a horid release and beta guilds exploited to win. Bugs were rampent.
Darkfall is from my view going to be like shadowbane plus 10. Its going to have some basic shadowbane game play with other things included.
Almost every person that plays shadowbane is freaking wanting this game to comeout.
Sandbox games are the future in my MMO taste and i think darkfall is stepping in that direction.
I'm more of a roleplayer than anything and I love sandboxes. Shadowbane is like that for me and keeping a city ran through PvE and PvP and crafting means is enough to keep me happy. That is why I am waiting for Darkfall too. That and the skill based system Darkfall has.
I've played about 12 other MMO's before this one and most were WASD movement, which is what I prefer. So I know how ackward it is to come to a point and click MMO. But guess what? I got used to it in about a night. It isn't all that complicated. I just think that people do not want to take the time to learn it. That's all.
I guess I see Shadowbane and Darkfall as the same, because I look at Darkfall as something different than what you all look at it as. I look at Darkfall as a sandbox MMO that will allow me to be apart of a player ran city, that can be taken away from me if I don't defend it. I look at Darkfall and its crafter based economy and then I look at the skill based advancement system.
Out of those, the skill based is what is different from Shadowbane and Shadowbanes class system is actually pretty good, because it is a class/skill base hybrid. I'm thinking that you all are liking Darkfall for other reasons than I like it for, such as a more twitch based combat system.
All I am saying is that the two games are very similar and I worry that Darkfall might suffer the same fate. Maybe there just isn't a big enough market for people that like sandbox type of games.
All these things can happen in Darkfall. Besides, unless the Darkfall team makes it where we can only have one character per server, there will be tons of alts. There will also be specialized skill templates. There will be FOTM builds and such. I've played other skill based games and this was so. Even in a skill based game, you are not immune to PvP builds and bots. People will have bots. I won't, but you would be naive to think that many people wouldn't.
A FFA PvP game is never friendly to the newbie and probably never will be. Darkfall will have the same problems. I haven't had trouble finding a guild in Shadowbane and I doubt it will be much of a problem in Darkfall either. More people in your guild means more people to help defend. But everyone has their reasons for not playing a game, including Shadowbane. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience in that game, however, experiences like that are common in all (12 + games) the games I've played. That's just life in the MMO world.
By now, most of the bugs have been ironed out, the XP rate has been cranked so that you can powerlevel to 75 in a few days instead of weeks, and the lag has been reduced to a mere annoyance. The thing is that the game is just not competitive with current titles; it looks old and feels tired. It was released in 2003 but had been in development for four or five years. A half dozen years is a long time in the game market.
All these things can happen in Darkfall. Besides, unless the Darkfall team makes it where we can only have one character per server, there will be tons of alts. There will also be specialized skill templates. There will be FOTM builds and such. I've played other skill based games and this was so. Even in a skill based game, you are not immune to PvP builds and bots. People will have bots. I won't, but you would be naive to think that many people wouldn't.
Having alts is not so much the problem as it running dual accounts/boxes so that players can have mulitple characters online simultaneously. The prevalence of multiple accounts can be encouraged or discouraged through game design. In Shadowbane, buffing and healing are very beneficial and are relatively passive to play. Thus you would often get one person playing one active toon with a buff/heal bot on follow. If the importance of buffing and in-combat healing is minimized and those abilities made to require more active input, then dual boxing can be discouraged.
Niccoli
shadowbane has a few of the same features df will have. Uo has a few also, AC-DT has a few, DAOC has a few. Reason is the devs have played these games and have been inspired by the best part of these games.
But to say this game has been done before is just ignorant.
Khael[SUN]
SUN - peekayin since pong
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