Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
25 Hour Review
I recently learned that Darkfall was offering a free 14 day trial period. I've been interested in the game for years, although to be honest I thought it was vaporware. Anyway, I decided to give the game a try. After 25 hours of play, I have decided to subscribe. I thought I would give a quick review for anyone sitting on the fence.
World Environment - Grade: B
(+) large world
(+) attractive environment: the graphics are not exactly state-of-the-art, but the world environment is quite attractive. There have been times when I have stopped playing just to watch a sunset. Once, I found an absolutely enormous, beautiful tree out in the middle of nowhere. I can remember thinking that in another MMO* the tree would be the centerpiece of some important quest, while in DF it was just another piece of art.
(+) no pointless wandering, aggressive mobs: it seems like every MMO* has a virtual army of monsters wandering the countryside. When I started Vanguard, you could hardly take two steps without bumping into some annoying critter. Let's face it, these mobs were designed to serve as grind material. Unfortunately, a world overpopulated with wandering mobs has the effect of discouraging exploration. In Darkfall, you will find mobs in camps, but they don't wander around like in other games. It's a real relief.
(-) world seems empty at times: I have found a village and a keep that appear to be empty. No friendly villagers, no mad knights to dispatch... nothing. Totally empty. The world seems unfinished. It's easy to imagine an office setting where the world designers and artists are working their bums off, while the individuals in charge of creating quests and placing mobs are on a perpetual coffee break.
(-) buildings you can't enter: in an open world, nothing is more frustrating than a door you can't open.
Stability - Grade: B+
(-) it can be very difficult to connect to the game due to frequent disconnects while logging in. Aventurine claims the disconnects are caused by various ISPs not handling network traffic correctly. I'm not a network engineer, but I know BS when I hear it.
(+) no crashes: once you get into the game, it's stable.
Performance - Grade: C
(-) mobs occasionally rubberband/warp (my ping is low and my fps high).
UI - Grade: C
(-) if you don't macro, you have to hit two buttons to equip sword & shield. Lame.
(-) takes a while to get used to the interactive mode vs. the combat mode.
Crafting - Grade: A
I'm not really into crafting... but I think the crafting in DF is about as fun as it can be made.
(+) many tools and resources
(+) supposely you can make just about anything in the game
PvE - Grade: D
A word on mob AI: it is difficult to tell how much of mob behavior is caused by good AI, and how much is caused by buggy code. For example, casters will often run away to get out of melee range, but I've seen warriors do that too. At times, mobs have attacked me from very long range, only to get closer, forget about me, and return to patrol mode.
(+) can use terrain to your advantage (blocking arrows, spells)
(-) lack of obvious dungeons. I did find one cave, but couldn't figure out how to enter it.
(+) friendly fire is turned on during PvE
(+) an amazing number of quests in the newbie area. Nothing special, quality-wise.
PvP - Grade: n/a
You cannot be attacked during the first 24 hours of play, so obviously I have not seen any PvP action. However I expect to be disappointed. This appears to be a game for bunny hoppers, and I was never into that. Imagine two warriors standing back-to-back to fight off an attack, or a line of soldiers manning the parapet: that's the kind of PvP I want.
(+) FFA, with consequences
(+) full corpse looting
Economy - Grade: D
The economy seems to encourage players to be self-sufficient. This leads me to the conclusion that many players will walk around in self-made gear. Indeed, the two corpses I looted had items that were mostly made by the deceased. Palyma (sp?) was almost completely equipped with gear she had made, and the same was generally true for Capnsnubsalot (sp?).
(-) no auction house in game
(+) items cannot be repaired: this is brilliant! And it reminds players that one way or another, you're going to end up losing your "leet purple" gear.
Analysis - Overall Grade: B
DF has some very interesting features. I won't go into all the details, but you're really vulnerable to PvP in certain situations, such as looting a corpse or crafting. The knowledge that you can be attacked at any time and your corpse completely looted adds an edge to the game that is missing in WoW, Vanguard, etc. This is not a game where you can just hit auto-run on your way from Point A to Point B. I find that as I travel I constantly scan the landscape, and I might pause to crouch by a large rock to make sure no one is following me.
On the downside, DF was designed for PvP with PvE added as an afterthought. Furthermore, it appears that the PvP cycle is: grind for resources, craft, PvP; grind for resources...
Comments
In response to most of your (-) in green
(-) world seems empty at times: I have found a village and a keep that appear to be empty. No friendly villagers, no mad knights to dispatch... nothing. Totally empty. The world seems unfinished. It's easy to imagine an office setting where the world designers and artists are working their bums off, while the individuals in charge of creating quests and placing mobs are on a perpetual coffee break.
The world dont seem unfinished, its unfinished period. Its a niche game so you had to expect that. DF dont even advertis yet because they know that they are not ready for the mass.
(-) buildings you can't enter: in an open world, nothing is more frustrating than a door you can't open.
You hate GTA? Anyway, this is the type of opinion that should never be in a review. Its better to see doors pixel and a house on the way rather then nothing.
Stability - Grade: B+
(-) it can be very difficult to connect to the game due to frequent disconnects while logging in. Aventurine claims the disconnects are caused by various ISPs not handling network traffic correctly. I'm not a network engineer, but I know BS when I hear it.
During trial, i never got DCed once and this before school started that = more populated at all time. Make sure that the problem dont come from your computer and connection before you jump into conclusion.
Performance - Grade: C
(-) mobs frequently rubberband/warp (my ping is low and my fps high).
With that one,i can confirm that you are the problem. Not darkfall. There is also a guide to reduce FPS if you go on the official darkfall forum player section. You will see it stickied. As for me, i never use that guide and never had that problem. 120 pings BTW.
UI - Grade: C
(-) if you don't macro, you have to hit two buttons to equip sword & shield. Lame.
(-) takes a while to get used to the interactive mode vs. the combat mode.
I agree with the 1st setence. For the second, its a (+). Not a (-) Player skill get involve even more because of that point so whats the problem? You dont like to learn???
(-) no auction house in game
Thank god we are not in the darkfall official forum. If we could flame without getting banned, players in here would none stop flaming you because of that setence im telling you. Auction house like WOW is anti sandbox. Auction house are for Theme park mmorpg's where developers are holding your hand all the time.
On the downside, DF was designed for PvP with PvE added as an afterthought. Furthermore, it appears that the PvP cycle is: grind for resources, craft, PvP; grind for resources...
For your 1st setence, i fail to understand what is the down side about pve being an afterthought. This is not Counter strike.
For your second setence, how can you claim that when its suppose to be a 25 hour review? Anyway, grinding for resource is not a downside. Its sandbox. Join a clan so players can set you up with some items so you can either go pvp or pve more easily. Its all about Economic. DF is not for lone wolf just to let you know.
Your problem is, you still got theme park mmorpg's in your mind. You have to get reed of all that in order to enjoy DF. I was like that too before, just like you with the same critic, but with time, i got reed of all that theme park sickness and im ready for darkfall. Once you trial is over and you buy darkfell, join a clan. Playing darkfella alone is not fun. Try to learn all about darkfall and you will see how fun it is.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
I was going to take the time and respond to your points but I tend to distrust folks with attitudes as the one conveyed above. I've played since beta on both EU and NA servers and the "connect" issue is recent and not related to the "game". AV had explained it and is working on it.
One thing - If you are going to write all this stuff up and so much of it can be impacted by your rig and connection, you should include your system details, location and server connected to.
No worries though, I'm sure some who have never played, played a year or so ago, or merely played the trial will enjoy discussing all this with you. -)
Good luck on the next game you "try". -CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Just out of curiosity, what is it about an AH that is anti-sandbox? What about a market like EVE's? Is that not sandbox?
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
You may want to read the op's post again. he stated he subscribed.
Seems odd though that the connection error is only happening with darkfall and no other game that I'm aware of. Would seem that the issue is on their end.
I never tried EVE. Dont just trow a game name as an example without explaining more about the system they use.
DF is a player driven game. If you want auction house system, make sure to have players that will role play the black horse courier from oblivion. Land your items and gold to a player that you can trust to buy items for you or sell items for you. This is sandbox.
A market place can be great, but should not in no way, be an other global market system. It should be 100% local and merchant location should not be in starter or NPC Racial city since towers are so strong, that they will always prevent players from infiltrating.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
The subject is "25 Hour Review". You may want to read my response again. A number of his paragraphs make his system specs and connection/server meaningful. That info is missing.
There have been a few connection issues lately and not being an expert on the subject I don't care to debate it. The fact is AV has announced it is aware of it, announced it recognized what was in its own domain and meeting with the folks they lease network related service from. My point is this is a new issue and not one players have had to deal with since release. It's an issue; and being dealt with. OP makes a stupid comment like he can smell BS when he hears it says a lot about the OP to me. There's nothing really to discuss from my point of view, but if you feel otherwise, enjoy yourself.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Sorry, thought you would be familiar with EVE. EVE is a huge sandbox game. EVE's in-game market is like no other MMO I've seen. It's truly impressive. You can access the market through a central window, and search for all kinds of things like ore, scavenged parts, skills, blueprints, ship enhancements, ships and pretty much anything else in-game.
Say you're looking for a blueprint for a specific cruiser. You pull up the market window, find the blueprint and it'll show you prices, locations, prerequisites and lot more information. You can put in an offer or buy outright. I see there's a blueprint for sale on the station I'm in, but it's 3x more expensive than one in another system 10 jumps away. I can buy that cheaper one where I am, but I must travel to that system to pick it up or contract with someone to pick it up for me. Those contracts can be broken though and you can lose money and/or items so you need to sign contracts with people you trust.
Because anything and everything can be bought and sold on the market, it's not hard at all to start making money from day 1. EVE's market is so complex and realistic that universities have studied it. To see what I mean, check out these sites:
EVE Markets
EVE Central
I agree that it should be 100% local merchants. You should have to travel to the locations you want to buy something from, or get someone else to get it for you. Clans could have protected caravans that go to market hubs to buy and sell goods. Those caravans could be attacked along the way. Or your merc clan could be hired to protect the caravan. Your merc clan could turn on the caravan and take all their goods! The possibilities for PvP through something like that are excellent.
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
EVE is another setting as well. A setting where people have all those nice technical things like internet, servers, brokers, postal services etc. It's obvious they aren't in place in world like Agon though...
The guy gave this game a B+ or whatever man. I would have given this game a D, so I think you should be happy with this post. People can't even say a good review about a game without being flamed for it by the fans.
Edit , wow for some reason I thought he was talking about eve.. Should have known better when he said sword and shield. Anyhow carry on. I don't really like darkfall either but it's better than eve imo.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
The connection issues and server performence problems appeared the moment GNi the hosting partner for Darkfall got bought by another company, that happened 2- 3 months ago. AV announced that this week they will have technicians of this new company at Athens to get to the root of the problems and resolve em.
There wasn't such problems before with GNi and i hope we return to the state in which we barely made thoughts about connect performance issues.
btw. There exist caves you can enter normally but there are also dungeons you need to enter through a portal so you load and spawn into.
-----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)
FYI, there are lots of dungeons. You enter them through big glowing portals.
The Economy in DFO is localzied and much better than games such as WoW, or even Vanguard. There is a HUGE market for mats, regs, high end weapons, and armor.
Crafting I would not give an A. I have seen worse but it is C - B- at best.
No! Really?
Use your imagination a little. I'm obviously not saying we need to copy EVE's market verbatim. I'm not suggesting we use all the fanciest, modern parts. They DO have an amazing economy that AV could learn from though.
I gave a basic example of how that could be done in the last paragraph of my post. DF doesn't have anything like that atm.
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
BestSigEver :P
ChinaCat --- you were wrong to troll the dudes post. Just accept that you made a mistake and move on. Dont try to spin it so that you're still right. That was sad.
The game was positively reviewed. Its well established that RealBigDeal is a troll. He was one on the beta forums, and hes been one publicly for the past year and a half. But do the rest of you have to join him? At least read the post first instead of going on the attack based off a post title.
Youre trolling a NEW SUBSCRIBER.
Way to show off Darkfall's wonderful community.... next time leave the newbie killing in the game.
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
I hate ppl calling me fan boy im not. Do a lil more research on my post history and you will see that i critic darkfall a lot.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
Are you going to critic users or stay on topic?
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
Welcome to Darkfall!
I added what my review would be like.
NEWS FLASH! "A bank was robbed the other day and a man opened fire on the customers being held hostage. One customer zig-zag sprinted until he found cover. When questioned later he explained that he was a hardcore gamer and knew just what to do!" Download my music for free! I release several albums per month as part of project "Thee Untitled" . .. some video game music remixes and cover songs done with instruments in there as well! http://theeuntitled.bandcamp.com/ Check out my roleplaying blog, collection of fictional short stories, and fantasy series... updated on a blog for now until I am finished! https://childrenfromtheheavensbelow.blogspot.com/ Watch me game on occasion or make music... https://www.twitch.tv/spoontheeuntitled and subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvqULn678VrF3OasgnbsyA
Nothing makes the game look worse to onlookers than people trying to troll a new person's review of a game. It's an >opinion< and not yours, anyways.
OK, back to topic. I recently downloaded the trial (huge download, by the way) and I would say, for the most part, that the OP's post is how I feel. I think the AH could be implemented in a modest form; maybe not a worldwide version, but you get the idea.
The AI is indeed a bit glitchy once in a great while. Nothing like a mob dodging and kiting as they hail arrows on me. When the switch to melee, they run in (still trying to dodge my missiles) and actually make a decent go at it. It can get them into trouble, however, with the rather 'spastic' action (getting stuck). It is just unfortunate that people take advantages of glitches and macros in this game.
I find the game to have a good dose of player skill required, but character skill (through grindy grind) is also needed to a certain level and that's where people try to glitch and macro. I found one fellow sitting for hours just spamming buffs to skill up. I found myself always crouch walking, running, sprinting and swimming to try to raise my skills. I find this to be a bit of an immersion breaker, to be honest. Most of these skills reduce the amount of stamina they consume. If you run out of stamina in combat, you can only >WALK< (normally you run or sprint) and cannot block, parry, swing, etc. You are dead meat in a tin can, buddy. (That's a big part of combat strategy. How much you bob, weave, dodge, sprint, etc. and retiring from the field with enough stamina to run to safety if you are losing)
I found the crafting system pretty cool. Any tree can be chopped for wood. Any pile of stone for stone. Any bush for a ton of different 'weeds' and whatnot. You can fish just about anywhere.
Honestly, I think the game would be more popular if it had a bit more explanation of the mechanics of the game, how the skills affect your play, etc. for the new players. Yeah, yeah, some of you had less than they have now and you 'did fine'. Good for you. I am talking about bringing subs up and streamlining the process of getting new players "into action".
It is definitely something different from what most people are used to. They think uber-gear and the typical skill progression. If you do that, your character skills will be low (there is no character level raising them automatically, just individual skill levels that you want to be using a lot to raise up) and when you die, you will lose your gear and be screwed. In this game, you hoard dropped armor and only use what you can afford to lose (like Eve). Ie., you run around sporting dropped junk armor most of the time. You are not your suit of armor. You are your skills and your character skills. You harvest to boost some of your stats and build more armor, weapons, food, pots, etc. to keep yourself going forward.
I really like the lack of a radar system. You have to be careful about what sounds you make as that can be what gives you away (including to mobs). Sneak around like a hunter. Turn your 5.1 speakers up and listen carefully. Hide behind the terrain. Always be watching your back. Find that tree to harvest that's out of the way so you won't get caught by surprise while harvesting, ,etc. Good, good stuff. :-)
I found myself being spotted by mobs before I spotted them. (where did that arrow in the side of my head come from!??!). However, if I sneak around and don't make noise, I can get close. I was once resting behind the goblin's house between it and a bush. A goblin walked within 10 feet of me and didn't notice me. :-) As soon as I cast a heal spell or moved through that bush, he heard me and came after me.
Ultimately, I had a pretty good time at the game. I would probably sub, but I just don't have the time for such a time sink MMO as this one is. :-/ I found the world pretty darn empty, but racial chat was a good source for help from vets in answering your questions. I found it sated my interests for sandbox, decent crafting, sneaky and tactical combat, etc. It also, unfortunately, has too much time sink and a bit of macro/glitch content in it.
I don't see the mistake? Care to point it out?
lets talk about the pve for a second on two fronts. Front one is the AI by itself not comparing it to other games the second comparing it to other mmo's.
One. Mobs can see, hear, and they rally their buddies. You CAN sneak up on mobs (clearly not all of them) and they differ in their night vision. Why do they move around? sometimes when they move away from your its for distraction, sometimes its becuase their health is low, sometimes to go back to their spawn area, sometime to rally their buddies.
Next time you fight something with spells, pay attention to the spell orders too, they make sense. they will debuff you first, then attack etc.
Two: The MMO's I have played in the past have an AI that basically does the following, see you, come to you, cast or swings weapons. if you move they follow. EXTREEMLY basic.
I think players without a lot of experience or some how a lack of understanding confuse a moving target that doesnt come directly for you as a 'broken' AI
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
There is nothing "futuristic" about an auction house. banks, markets, fairs, merchants, caravans, they all existed for a long long long ... *2 hours of saying long*... long time. Even the delivery of an item via mail can be done in this setting - by contracts! You hire someone to haul that item for you! Just like Eve does. IMO, Eve has THE...BEST...SANDBOX...MARKET...EVER.
Sorry for the caps, Eve market just "excites" me that much. Too bad the game itself bores me too quickly
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.