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Darkfall 2.0 Should Wipe! Here's why
username509
Member CommonPosts: 635
Ripped from http://sandboxer.org/?p=207 one of the many many way to many blogs I follow.
We were all disappointed with Darkfall at launch. We waited 10 years for this game to be released and when it finally did come out it more closely resembled a litter box than a sandbox. Yes the PVP was fun, some of the most fun I’ve ever had in any MMO. But cheating was rampant, macroing was the norm, and there was a complete lack of “fun” when it came to PVE.
This may all change with Darkfall 2.0. The devs claimed they redesigned the world possibly removing useless horribly designed cities and making housing spots more common and more relevant. They claim to have changed the skilling system so that the game no longer resembles a Korean grind. Casual player may actually have a chance to have fun, and hardcore players may no longer be found in global chat gloating about how many books they read while semi afk swimming into a corner to stat up. Strangely Aventurine makes no reference as to rather or not Mahirim will get there wolf form ability in 2.0.
In the old Darkfall I don’t think it would be a complete stretch to say MOST of the playerbase macroed up there skills and stats early on. While macroing was a bannable offense in Darkfall people did it anyways. In the first 6 months or so of Darkfalls release you could simply run simple auto mouse click macro for HOURS with any starting weapon to max out your skills. Later you needed to use more advanced weapons that decayed over time, but by then the damage was done. It was very common to find players afk stuck inside rocks or buildings thinking they were safe to afk macro with complex sword and board macros grinding up there stats and skills overnight. Every player city had a “blood wall” were guild mates would go afk and let there buddies wack on them to level up skills or to change there alignment. Player cities with water ALWAYS had a dozen or so players just afk swimming into a corner to stat up. Simply put if you didn’t afk macro you couldn’t compete. You would always do less damage than players who did macro, and you would always have less hit points than players who did macro.
Ultimately in some guild tests they found that a maxed out character could fairly easily take out a dozen newish players with similar gear without much of a problem.
It’s not just stats and skills that are a problem. Darkfall economy is still borked from numerous dupes that were prevalent in early Darkfall. Literally MILLIONS of gold and raw materials were duped. Guilds built entire player cities from “mostly” duped mats. The very first player ships were built entirely from duped mats. Very few people were actually banned from duping the duped goods were spread to hundreds of accounts by dozens of players and there are rumors floating around that the leadership of Merc actually quit there day jobs and now still sell duped Darkfall gold for a living.
Yes Aventurine took steps to help “new” players catch up by making the skilling up system not so insanely difficult and by giving you a bonus in skilling up through killing mobs as opposed to macroing on your guilds blood wall. Yes much of the duped gold and mats have worked its way through the economy and inflation has tempered down a bit. This is just to little to late. The damage has already been done. If you are a fairly new player or guild in Darkfall your put at a huge disadvantage when it comes to PVP.
This is why I say Aventurine should wipe! Darkfall needs new players. Lets face it the playerbase is not as large as it could or should be. This is largely because most new players are turned off by the grind and many old players unsubbed after the disappointing buggy launch and subsequent buggy 2 years of Darkfall. No one wants to play a game were they simply have no chance to compete unless they have to grind for 6 months. (except maybe Koreans) We should make it clear to Aventurine. We need a wipe for version 2.0!
I’m not saying veteran players shouldn’t be rewarded for there helping fund Darkfall through a difficult time. There efforts should be reworded by some sort of temporary boost to XP rates in the early months of Darkfall 2.0. They should maybe get to wear veteran “hats” or some purely cosmetic benefit. I’m personally hoping for some epic war culminating into some sort of epic LOTR style battle to declare the ultimate guild or race in Darkfall. That would be my idea of the best veteran “reward” before a Darkfall 2.0 wipe.
Think of a wipe not as a waste of time you spent grinding. Think of a wipe as a new beginning. Think of a wipe that will bring a better game. Think of a wipe that will present to us new challenges, but most importantly think of this wipe as wiping the crap out of your Agon.
Never trust a screenshot or a youtube video without a version stamp!
Comments
No thx, not a NGE again.
btw this players asking for wipe wasn't even loyal enough to stick with DF, why risk loyal customers playing since launch for players who would jump the ship again on the slightest signs of them falling behind again because those who love the game invest more time in it.
-----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)
Our loyal players? Lol, if they were loyal, they would follow to rules from A to Z. Everyone exploit that damn game just to become a beast character. In other words, to catch up with the vets since newb's and average dont even pvp enough.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
From an outsider's perspective (played trials but never subbed), how do you expect to increase the player base substancially without a wipe?
I could be interested in a new DF, but not if 90% of the population are already capped through previously ill-gotten gains.
For example it is me who plays according to rules from A to Z. Be carefull with that 'everyone' cause many could think you also think its ok to exploit and cheat to become a "beast character". These mindset of "i need to rush to endgame stats" is the foul in itself.
Very likely those will be the players that will leave again because they feel they "can't catch up" if someone who puts more time in the game gets better results. Who can't deny that such a player exploited the shit out of his char and after he got superstats he got bored and left because of it. To me this way around is more plausible because the behaviour to exploit and cheat stats to max fits more to someone who want insta-gratification and is afraid of long-term commitments with his char. There are many exploiters within those who left DF and IMO they the majority and not the loyal playerbase.
Btw i have a clear indication and example for my claim. Prior to meditation there was a big potion of those "casual gamers" (basically those who play other games and just have a DF window open where they macro) that actualy were breaking the afk swim rules and was trying to convince others that that was even ok and how Av should not ban them. Those are very likely the players that now demand a wipe at the expense of players who gained their stats through longtime commitment.
-----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)
The answer is easy but probably the more difficult way to implement. Through expanding the game and offer the promised content for different playstyles.
Can't it be those who gotten advantages by exploiting are gone cause they got bored ? There are enough examples for this that doesn't justify the prejudice vet=exploiter.
-----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)
Vet does not neccessarily = exploiter, but I would agree that the vast vast majority of vets exploited or macroed in some way to get to were they are now. It was common practice to afk swim, or macro on a bloodwall to skill and stat up. While you may be able to find the odd anadote player who claims they maxed out all skills and stats by just "playing" the game these people are surely in the minority if you can find one at all.
Never trust a screenshot or a youtube video without a version stamp!
Another one of these threads?
Seriously the only game where its even tolerated to suggest wiping players progress after close to 3 years just to satisfy new players who will be on a level play field for a few weeks, before those with more time are once again ahead of them.
Currently it doesnt take all that long to get competative, magic is the downfall being that it is the only true epic grind left in the game, and thats going out the door in 2.0
Also 2.0 will make it easier for you the new player to get competative, thats the point of 2.0. Wiping out long time supporters who made 2.0 possible seems like the worst idea possible...
On top of the fact they flat out 100% confirmed no wipe would occur when the project started, and then confirmed this summer that a wipe wouldnt be needed.
I understand the fear people have with being behind in a game like this, considering its full loot, and the current system (even with the grind reduced several times over by increased skill gains and medatation). However this really isnt a game where the epically strong characters controlled by players with real skill in the game mix with new players just starting out.
In fact, darkfall might be one if the most community friendly games to new players out there, i know it seems far off but its no joke. Those people you fear want you to get on their level, they want new blood who can compete with them.
There is no trying to keep new players down in darkfall. Dont believe me? Make a trial ask for help, youll get offers to join clans, people will want to give you starter gear, people will want to help. You may get ganked in the process but you wont be losing anything of real value and isnt easily replacable anyway.
Theres no need for a wipe in the sense that theres others in the game ahead of you...what will you do a month after the wipe when those with more time are once again ahead of you? And lets not use thr tired argument that you need to punish the many llegit players who didnt macro because some did. Again with 2.0 those who did macro will lose their edge, as magic (the only thing people really macro) will get a major overhaul and no longer be the insane grind is currently is.
Unless of course your intention is to "stick it" to the vets int he game for some kind of personal satisfaction. There are lots of bad blood vendettas in this game so i can understand how some would love to see those still in game "suffer"
This post actually makes me think of EVE. While it goes directly against EVE policy, I wonder how many new subs they would get if they started a second server. Everyone on the new server starts from scratch.
I played DF for about a month and it was really fun. But there were so many bugs and macroers I decided to stop playing. If there was a skill wipe I would come back but after seeing how long it took to get my skill levels up (magic was a PITA and I only got about halfway through greater magic, a little bit of necro) there's no I'm doing that over again. Also the devs are just plain horrible when it comes to delivering what they promise. As far as PvE goes, there isn't anything remotely close to WoW or EQ. My extent of PvE was grouping with 5-6 guildies, and farming mobs for drops. But all-in-all it was about as close to Elder Scrolls MMO you can get, with full loot like UO
I would try it again if they wiped.
Remember Old School Ultima Online
Tell me the MMO your current playing so i can ask for a wipe there.
You think a wipe would hit the right players but what you demand will hit me who invested 3 years of paying and legit playing into DF .
-----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)
Players like Darth is why I dont call for a wipe like so many are. Why would I want to just get rid of everything that someone has done just because its the easiest solution.
There are other things to do than wiping the game, they could start a second server that starts from scratch with DFO2.0 or they could just find a way to scale the existing chars in DFO to the 2.0 model.
There is a good way to do this, we just dont know enough about 2.0 to be able to figure it out.
unfortunately this game needs a wipe AND a stats cap. a wipe alone will help for about 6 months and then you are right back to where you were. without a cap to stats/skills this game will never have longevity.
The Devs are just stupid, period. The no skill cap had been talked about from day one and they did not listen.
They had been told that macroing, insta travel, and universal banks had been tried and failed hard with shadowbane, and they went ahead and did the exact same thing and now have the exact same results. Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuupiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid.
I haven't played DF in a while. Enjoyed it when I did play. However, I am interested to see what they decide to do. wipe, no wipe, wipe, no wipe. Either way people are going to be upset. IMO opinion, the smart move would be to wipe. Its true you would upset the hardcore fan base, but if my read is correct and the game doesn't have that many, it would seem the best bet would be to upset a relatively small population in order to get a much larger population (people who would like to jump back in or try the game) to play. Of course my reasoning is that there are more of the latter than the former.
Like I said, I'm not vested in the outcome because I don't play anymore, but I do enjoy following it, and am interested to see what happens.
I self identify as a monkey.
Good thread. I hope DF2 rocks. It should be fun to come back to this.
I want more interesting spells and magic schools though.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design