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Quick Game Review and side comments
Andromedus1
Member Posts: 67
Hey guys. Popped in on this forum after I noticed the officials were down and thought I'd post some generic info about the game. I noticed in a post someone said this community needs information - well perhaps if I give a little it will help someone make an informed decision about their money.
I played beta for a few weeks, but I do not currently own the game. That said, I will play the game. I had many bouts of anger towards the game during beta, even though I first came in as what you would call a fanboy. I posted some of the angriest stuff you would find on the beta boards. So, I came in hoping for a lot, but prepared to get angry if it wasn't there.
My primary harsh MMO experience is with MUDs and AC Darktide. It's important for anyone who has never played a no-levels MMO to brace themselves and expect to be disappointed when you first start playing this game. It took me a few days to realize it was happening to me, but levels are the crack addiction of other MMOs, they are the pat on the back to your hard work, your nod that you are headed in the right direction. Darkfall, having no levels, makes the game feel alien and empty to those who are used to successively reaching those milestons. This feeling will subside if you actually continue to play the game and progress towards the early stages of mid-game content.
Enough generic talk. Specific things that disappointed me that are still in: 1) Towers create safe zones in many areas. That said, if you want to kill people, you will never have difficulty finding people to kill. 2) There is very little punishment for naked death (10% health/stam/mana at respawn) which currently encourages naked travel. Vitae or death sickness may one day cure this, but right now it is common to see naked people clustered around bindstones. That is one thing I hope will be addressed shortly. 3) Creature spawns are tough to find, and most are very hard to solo. This isn't a huge deal for me as I have a good clan, but for many lone wolves (which is what I played in all other MMOs) this will be a difficult change. The sooner you accept that the lone wolf is an almost unplayably difficult playstyle, or at the very least will leave you at a massive (but admirable I guess) disadvantage, the better off you will be. Don't expect to be a lone wolf and compete like you may have in your last MMO. 4) Magic needs work, and I believe it is coming. I may be behind on this as they tweaked virtually every spell towards the end of beta, but at the time, mana missile was the best spell in the game (no cooldown, no components, low mana, fast, decent dmg, etc) and other spells were incredibly expensive with little benefit. This is a balance issue and easy to fix, and perhaps it has been addressed. 5) Universal banking is in. This has been known forever so I won't go into it further. 6) The player economy needs lubrication. Buyers and sellers have no good way to find one another other than chat and forums. Some like this, I do not and I expect it will be changed. 7) The stamina system is bad, and leads to too much chasing and consumables being too important, but it has been announced officially that they will overhaul it completely shortly after release.
Some things that bother other people but not me: 1) The "grind." I don't think you can have an MMO without some kind of grind and have it work out. Many testers complained that there was a grind. I didn't see it. 2) Macros. Many testers complained the game was too macro-friendly. I actually found it to be on par or harder than most MMOs to macro, particularly when they made the respawn 10% health, mana, and stam. Yes, there are several very mundane skills that can be macro'd with ease, but for the most part as I said it is on par with other games all things considered.
With that, I could write 10x as much about the things I like regarding the game, but this particular community tends not to swallow that pill very well, so I'll keep it brief. There is all the obvious shit, full loot, fully customizable players, never locked in, etc. etc. but beyond those things: The game has collision detection, and it works very well. Arrows fly fast and true and hit where you shoot them (although less arc would be more realistic, and I expect this tweak to come), the same is true for melee. Spells fly more slowly, generally with splash (although not all). The graphics have an incredible ambience and stylistic feel to them. The underwater portion of the game is as big physically as the above ground, and leaves a great deal of possibilities for the future. The siege system is fantastic, as is the process of acquiring and owning a city. Crafting is much more powerful than finding your own loot. Mounts are true, killable beasts that you can even steal. Melee combat reminds me of Jedi Knight II or Jedi Academy - it is very intense when you get better at it and a great deal of skill is involved (anyone who says otherwise probably sucks at melee). Group vs group fights are extremely intense, very playable lag (highest I played was 25 still in debug mode, was fine), small team cohesion and tactics are very important for them. The game has a lot of room for trash talk and is a great place for rivals to be born. The graphics were all made in-house making them improvable ad infitum, although from this old-schooler's eyes they are top notch. The economy is entirely player-driven, and gold is actually quite valuable (and inflation seems unlikely with the latest purchase tweaks). You really can go anywhere. Possibly the best: no radar. It completely changes the experience and the way you will behave traveling, PK'ing, etc. I could keep listing but I'll stop, this is getting long.
A couple final points: There wasn't, or at least shouldn't be, one single beta tester who is surprised by the current billing problems. The Developers of this game have a very unique personality, and once you learn it, you won't be phased by the way they conduct their business. They are quite withdrawn, generally don't say a lot to the community until changes are actually patched, and don't like to give ETAs for anything. With that said, they listen to the community, and implement meaningful changes to their game. The game improved with my few weeks in beta astronomically, and I was told the same by testers who were there before I arrived. Also, Everyone in beta with a brain knew the game would be a mess at launch for the first couple of weeks, so if you really want to try this game, just hang around for a while and let the dust settle before jumping to a decision too quickly.
And finally, I just want to reiterate something I said in the beginning about levels. You will go through leveling withdraw in this MMO. You just have to get through it, and keep on playing, and one moment you will be sitting there playing all pissed about how the game sucks, and the next moment you'll go "holy shit, I'm actually pretty powerful." That's when you know your "levels" would have come.
I tried to keep this post balanced, while obviously through the lens of my own opinion of and experience with the game. I hope this helps people to make an informed decision on the game, and if they choose to give it a shot, to give it its proper chance. To do anything else truly would be a waste of money.
Comments
It was a pretty big grind for magic, however ALL skills have been increased on release compared to beta.
People are already at lesser magic 25, and I'm at mining 30+ and I only mined for about 3 hours. I'm hoping the rate increase changes drastically at 50 or so and slows way down.
Also, the other complaint was sieging. They changed the clanshards to 10,000g from the 1,000g in beta. So sieging will take a bit of effort.
My biggest overall disappointment is weather isn't on yet.
good post... cant wait
It is hard to tell if a man is telling the truth when you know you would lie if you were in his place
Great post andro. The only thing I disagreed with is the part about the guard towers, and that is just because I dont want people getting camped inside the newbie towns or have banks near newbie spawns. Hopefully this review is objective enough for most people, although I doubt it will be.
I also agree that every beta tester should have seen the billing problems coming from a mile away.
Nice review, thank you.
Hope this will revive my good old AC feelings
, allthough i played on Solclaim. Yes, yes i know im a pvp noob 
Thanks for the legit review, i've been very on the fence about dark fall, but you seem to have a pretty posative and nuetral outlook on it.
I had been wondering about whether it was worth even considering DarkFall with how divided the community, people were either praising it as the Messiah or treating it like the Devil himself.
~Skryre
Pretty sure I was that person, and I must say it paid off because this is the most balanced review so far.
Played:
EQ1, AO, WoW, AoC
Best thread ever:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2680105/thread/225957#2680105
Wait a second.....there were AC servers besides Darktide?!?
To bad you didnt post more negitive points than positive......because then this thread would have been swamped with people saying "Thanks for the objective review, just what I was looking for" and "what a great review!!".
You all know its true.
This was one of the informative posts that you don't find too often around here.... sounds like you've payed too much attention to too many of the wrong people on this website
.
Anyway, great post OP.
Wait a second.....there were AC servers besides Darktide?!?
Haha, yeah they needed a place for all the gimps
I would like to contest a few of the negatives tho...
The naked thing: Being naked makes it much easier to get killed... armor DOES play a role. The nake people around bindstones are usually people who've died and are just now reviving at their bindstone (you lose everything when you die so you revive naked)
Mobs are hard to find: Just pay attention to your minimap... mobs are almost always in places on your map that look like something. On your map you have the plain, lifeless areas, then you'll notice structures, or clumps of things together on your minimap... these are usually mob spawns.
About the naked thing, I think he is more refering to people going from town to town naked to avoid being ganked or sitting around town naked ect... He wants their to be a bigger penalty to dieing as to make people want to wear armor even when they are not pvping/pveing. (I think this is what he was getting at)
I agree about the mobs, but they should have added some wildlife (nonaggressive mobs, deer ect..). Hopefully they did, or will.
This thread was getting buried below a bunch of troll, brat, whine threads.
QFT. Most people get a small high when other people agree with them. Since bashing DF and Aventurine is so popular here (I can't blame them for bashing Ave, btw), bystanders have formed negative outlooks on the game without even realizing it. Then they come back and check out the forums on launch day and see so much negativity, and that validates their original impressions.
BTW, I agree that most beta testers with a brain saw this coming from a mile away, but I was still really really hoping that Aventurine wouldn't screw it up as badly as they did. Darkfall doesn't deserve this mess.
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Games looking forward to: Fallen Earth, Mortal Online
The noob formally not known as not being the formally not unkown known APEist; The Stone Cold Killer of Tarq.
Not if I can help it. This is one of the few good threads on these forums.
QFT. Most people get a small high when other people agree with them. Since bashing DF and Aventurine is so popular here (I can't blame them for bashing Ave, btw), bystanders have formed negative outlooks on the game without even realizing it. Then they come back and check out the forums on launch day and see so much negativity, and that validates their original impressions.
BTW, I agree that most beta testers with a brain saw this coming from a mile away, but I was still really really hoping that Aventurine wouldn't screw it up as badly as they did. Darkfall doesn't deserve this mess.
+1
ITs a fine line when you lsiten to beta testers too much.....After all Aventurine is the one who should have the vision for the game, not the player......WHile players can give valuable input they can also screw over the game royally with complaints about things being OP and demanding nerfs and other stuff.......Just realize that some of these people can get quite vocal and one day you can have some things added/removed because of the complaints of a few people.......As for some of the other things the OP brought up: I dont agree on the graphics......To me they look very outdated and the animations are very poor.......
Darkfall reminds me alot of when Vanguard was late in beta/about to be released........There were two kinds of players basically at the end of beta.......There were the "this game is terrible and shouldnt launch for another year" people and there were the "We know it isnt perfect now but just look at the potential and it will be perfect soon" people........I think too many people are putting too much faith in Aventurine to make this game great......As it stands right now it isnt great in any way, shape or form........Maybe a company like Blizzard could turn Darkfall into something much greater than it is, but a small company like Aventurine will be very hard pressed to keep up with the demands of its playerbase.......This launch is small potatoes compared to most other MMOs and they cant even handle it........ Really I think people should take a long wait and see with this game but the nature of most people is buy immediately and I jsut gotta have it!!!!!!
Im following this game only since end of last year, but i think what these guys from Aventurine did was really great work. Without any large publisher, with such a small team bringing the game to the state where it now is really demands some hard work and good financial management. I think they took large risk to even try it on their own.
So i really appreciate what they are doing and i can imagine they do have some sleepless nights now.
If you can read this Tasos and team: Keep up the good work, im with you!
You never played the game did you. If you say that it is not great in any way shape or form you are obviously not a fan of what Darkfall is..
But I agree that most ppl feel the need to buy at release...my advice would be to wait a month or two unless you dont mind the bugs at the start.
Nice post, I'm starting to look forward to trying this game in the summer.
A rarity in this day and age; an intelligently smooth review. Nice job.
Indeed.
First off, I have never played DFO yet and probably wont be for a month or 2.
But I am very glad to see people taking it slow instead of rushing in for release. Finally some realistic expectations.
I just got done making a post earlier saying how people should go in to it with realistic expectations. First 6 months are hard for all MMO's - even the best ones ever. I'm sure DF will have some of its problems addressed, and others will become apparent after a month or 2.
I hope people go in to it expecting that things wont be perfect, because realistically they will not. Another poster mentione Blizzard - even Blizzards MMO's are a shadow of themselves for the first 6 months.
This does not mean games will not be FUN in that time. They are just very young and will not be without their flaws. Even a year in there will be flaws - but they will be much less noticeable.
Finally, noone should be calling this game a failure until it has been out for AT LEAST a year. That is when games hit their prime and you can really tell what they are - and what they are going to be becoming.
Hopefully you all understand this so you can have some fun, instead of being let down and never coming back due to a grudge with the game. Because it is a real shame when that happens in MMO's - wait until you see the game in its prime until you decide if it is a "failure" and you never want to return.
Some games - like Eve - will still be evolving rapidly over 5 years later. I know people who thought Eve was a failure 3-4 years in, and who tried it again recently and love it. Just keep things in perspective
This thread contains to much common sense! It is going to explode!!!
I was also in beta, and I have to agree with the OP.
Although I had some issues with the game at first, I did have more fun with it than I've had with many MMO's. I usually play solo, and soloing in this game isn't easy. I was forced to be more sociable and I discovered that I actually got along well with many of my fellow players . In small, tightly knit, groups this game is amazing and adictive.
My advice to those going into it would be as follows.
1. Make some friends. Talk to people. Not everyone is out to loot your kill or gank you. If you talk to them you might actually find some trustworthy allies.
2. Don't spend too much time grinding up skills. Having high skills is nice, but the game is very playable from the very beginning. Get yourself a decent set of armor and a decent weapon and you won't do too badly for yourself.
3. Play for the PvP. The PvE is nice if you're trying to get a particular item (I farmed goblins for arrows), but the game is a lot more fun when you're stalking the wilds of hostile territory with two or three of your friends. Even with your skills low, I've found that victory almost always goes to the person who draws first blood. It's better to give than to recieve, and that's particularly true when it comes to ambushes in Darkfall.
4. Expect skirmishes. Believe it or not, few of the battles I fought in ended with the complete destruction of one side. Usually only a couple people would end up dead at the end of any engagement, and the survivors would often be able to regroup and set up an ambush elsewhere.