Just returned to the game (eu sever) , and it seems like alot of people are returning atm.
Games Played: Anarchy Online,Star Wars Galaxies,WOW,Eve,Darkfall,Vanguard, Fallen Earth,SWTOR,GW2,Tera,ESO,Wildstar, Black Desert, Archeage & Albion Online Now playing: Conan Exiles & Rocket League Games looking forward to: Diablo 4! & Star Citizen?
Steam numbers? Most of the playerbase (maybe 95%) had the game long before steam release.
But anyway the game is still good fun and the political warfare is still going on
Games Played: Anarchy Online,Star Wars Galaxies,WOW,Eve,Darkfall,Vanguard, Fallen Earth,SWTOR,GW2,Tera,ESO,Wildstar, Black Desert, Archeage & Albion Online Now playing: Conan Exiles & Rocket League Games looking forward to: Diablo 4! & Star Citizen?
Nice video, I like what I saw there. I am going to be making a new account for this game very soon. I tried this game when it launched but I left in search of the greener grass. I think this is the game for me to be playing though. I am casual and roll solo a lot, but I am ready for the challenge and ready to meet some new peeps.
I just started playing a couple of days ago and there are alot of people running around.
I also did not buy through steam.
Originally posted by laokoko "if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Originally posted by Badaboom No one that I know uses steam to play Darkfall. So the steam numbers being low doesn't surprise me.
Doesn't this renders AV efforts to get DF:UW on steam as big FAIL ?
Also DF:UW is not being liked by steam population is a tragedy for DF:UW since it was their target playerbase after AV efforts to get rid of their original sandbox based community.
-----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)
Originally posted by Badaboom No one that I know uses steam to play Darkfall. So the steam numbers being low doesn't surprise me.
Doesn't this renders AV efforts to get DF:UW on steam as big FAIL ?
Also DF:UW is not being liked by steam population is a tragedy for DF:UW since it was their target playerbase after AV efforts to get rid of their original sandbox based community.
this is pretty accurate..
The old community gave AV greenlight in one day.. yet av dont seem to bother to get it working with for example steamkeys..
Pretty sad..
Everyone also thinks that unholy wars is sandbox.. which it is not.. there is not a single feature ingame that can be catagorised as a sandbox..
Originally posted by Badaboom No one that I know uses steam to play Darkfall. So the steam numbers being low doesn't surprise me.
Doesn't this renders AV efforts to get DF:UW on steam as big FAIL ?
Also DF:UW is not being liked by steam population is a tragedy for DF:UW since it was their target playerbase after AV efforts to get rid of their original sandbox based community.
Darkfall was never a sandbox period. Its always been a conquest games. The original vision of DFO was to be a sandbox game that never came true due to failures of the developers on various fronts. The only thing sandbox DFO ever had was player politics.
At least a couple of 1000 people have bought DFO through stream, so it wasn't a failure. New people buy through steam every sale.
I'd still call it a sanbox, because there is no quest chain leading you by the nose. Sure, there's the feats to complete, but there is no clear path of A, B, C, D.
No gated content. No Gearscore, etc.
You log on and do what you want. Look at players like Sean Connery decided to make a career as a pirate, and now that scraping is nerfed, he has changed his occupation to Real Estate Agent of Agon. That's a perfect example of a player setting his own path, and making his own game.
I'd still call it a sanbox, because there is no quest chain leading you by the nose. Sure, there's the feats to complete, but there is no clear path of A, B, C, D.
No gated content. No Gearscore, etc.
You log on and do what you want. Look at players like Sean Connery decided to make a career as a pirate, and now that scraping is nerfed, he has changed his occupation to Real Estate Agent of Agon. That's a perfect example of a player setting his own path, and making his own game.
You could do most of that in themepark games with various systems. The reason I won't call DFO a sandbox is because its too one dimensional. Its pretty much just a PvP game since everything else in the game is farily linear.
Originally posted by Holophonist There is no binary state of either being a sandbox or being a themepark. DFUW has sandbox elements, just not a lot of them.
Originally posted by Holophonist There is no binary state of either being a sandbox or being a themepark. DFUW has sandbox elements, just not a lot of them.
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.
Originally posted by Holophonist There is no binary state of either being a sandbox or being a themepark. DFUW has sandbox elements, just not a lot of them.
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.
world of warcraft is also open world pvp.. you call that a sandbox too???
The defination of a sandbox is where players dont have a static path to follow in either crafting building or settup of your char..
in UW everything is static.. housing is static citybuilding is static.. even the prowness system is static which is basicly a questiing system now if for example
Housing was dynamic.. you could place your house everywhere you want.
compared to df1.0 which had only ONE sandbox element which was the char progression.. FREE of choice of what skill you wanted to use and or skill up
even tasos dont know what a sandbox is because he is selling the game as a sandbox.
Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Snoepie Originally posted by Holophonist There is no binary state of either being a sandbox or being a themepark. DFUW has sandbox elements, just not a lot of them.
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.
world of warcraft is also open world pvp.. you call that a sandbox too???
The defination of a sandbox is where players dont have a static path to follow in either crafting building or settup of your char..
in UW everything is static.. housing is static citybuilding is static.. even the prowness system is static which is basicly a questiing system now if for example
Housing was dynamic.. you could place your house everywhere you want.
compared to df1.0 which had only ONE sandbox element which was the char progression.. FREE of choice of what skill you wanted to use and or skill up
even tasos dont know what a sandbox is because he is selling the game as a sandbox.
pretty funny
First of all sandbox simply means freedom. The ability to build your house in the open world is some degree of freedom. Again, this is why I'm saying that being a sandbox isn't a binary, on/off designation. Most MMOs don't have open world housing of any kind. So DFUW offers more freedom in this case.
So what if everything in DF is static? It's not ideal but it's alot more freedom than most other games offer.
I'm not saying wow is "a sandbox" just like I'm not saying DFUW is "a sandbox." The fact that you're even phrasing it like that shows that you're not even comprehending my point, which is that there's no such thing as a 100% sandbox. It's all a sliding scale. Yes open world pvp is a sandbox FEATURE even in wow. But wow also has an overwhelming amount of themepark features and those features dominate how the game is played. Alsowow doesn't have full loot, which you conveniently left out.
any example of a sandbox game you give me will have an enormous amount of restriction in an objective sense.
Originally posted by Holophonist There is no binary state of either being a sandbox or being a themepark. DFUW has sandbox elements, just not a lot of them.
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.
world of warcraft is also open world pvp.. you call that a sandbox too???
The defination of a sandbox is where players dont have a static path to follow in either crafting building or settup of your char..
in UW everything is static.. housing is static citybuilding is static.. even the prowness system is static which is basicly a questiing system now if for example
Housing was dynamic.. you could place your house everywhere you want.
compared to df1.0 which had only ONE sandbox element which was the char progression.. FREE of choice of what skill you wanted to use and or skill up
even tasos dont know what a sandbox is because he is selling the game as a sandbox.
pretty funny
The character progression system in DFO was not sandbox as it was completely linear. There's less linear progression in UW than there was in DFO by the virtue of the removal of skill level restrictions (all skill can be unlocked at any time). And while there is a logical progression for leveling, it can be completely ignored.
The character customization in DFO was not sandbox either because there weren't any meaningful restrictions. This allowed min-maxing for the best over all character build and created carbon copy clones all over the place. From an RPG perspective, everyone was the same a battle mage hybrid. UW, while more restrictive in skill choice, has more diversity from an RPG stand point.
The only truly sandbox feature DFO and UW have is the political meta game. But that one feature alone, especially since its part of the core game design and all things revolve around it, still makes DFO/UW more of a sandbox than 90% titles on the market. The only other games that come close to it are other actual sandboxes like MO and EvE (UO isn't modern). The direction AV is taking UW in terms of conquest and crafting will make the game be more sandboxy, but at its core it will forever be a conquest game because the entire game revolves and will continue to revolve around it. This isn't a bad thing, its serves it purpose which is to fill the "play to crush" niche.
Originally posted by Snoepie Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Snoepie Originally posted by Holophonist There is no binary state of either being a sandbox or being a themepark. DFUW has sandbox elements, just not a lot of them.
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.
world of warcraft is also open world pvp.. you call that a sandbox too???
The defination of a sandbox is where players dont have a static path to follow in either crafting building or settup of your char..
in UW everything is static.. housing is static citybuilding is static.. even the prowness system is static which is basicly a questiing system now if for example
Housing was dynamic.. you could place your house everywhere you want.
compared to df1.0 which had only ONE sandbox element which was the char progression.. FREE of choice of what skill you wanted to use and or skill up
even tasos dont know what a sandbox is because he is selling the game as a sandbox.
pretty funny
The character progression system in DFO was not sandbox as it was completely linear. There's less linear progression in UW than there was in DFO by the virtue of the removal of skill level restrictions (all skill can be unlocked at any time). And while there is a logical progression for leveling, it can be completely ignored.
The character customization in DFO was not sandbox either because there weren't any meaningful restrictions. This allowed min-maxing for the best over all character build and created carbon copy clones all over the place. From an RPG perspective, everyone was the same a battle mage hybrid. UW, while more restrictive in skill choice, has more diversity from an RPG stand point.
The only truly sandbox feature DFO and UW have is the political meta game. But that one feature alone, especially since its part of the core game design and all things revolve around it, still makes DFO/UW more of a sandbox than 90% titles on the market. The only other games that come close to it are other actual sandboxes like MO and EvE (UO isn't modern). The direction AV is taking UW in terms of conquest and crafting will make the game be more sandboxy, but at its core it will forever be a conquest game because the entire game revolves and will continue to revolve around it. This isn't a bad thing, its serves it purpose which is to fill the "play to crush" niche.
The thing that would make DFUW a full blown sandbox for me would be variety in professions (not different pvp classes). I want pve specialists, actual harvesters, crafters, treasure hunters, fishers, etc.
The only thing really sandboxie about darkfall is there is nothing telling you what to do. No quests, although you could argue that feats are quests. You also get to spend your prowess points into whatever you skills or attributes that you want. Certain design decisions took away from lots of potential sandbox opportunities. Things like local banking, craftable housing placeable anywhere.
PS: Sandbox is to lego as Themepark is to LEGOLAND.
The thing that would make DFUW a full blown sandbox for me would be variety in professions (not different pvp classes). I want pve specialists, actual harvesters, crafters, treasure hunters, fishers, etc.
I said in beta that Treasure Hunters should have to spec to be Treasure Hunters, ala UO..
The character progression system in DFO was not sandbox as it was completely linear. There's less linear progression in UW than there was in DFO by the virtue of the removal of skill level restrictions (all skill can be unlocked at any time). And while there is a logical progression for leveling, it can be completely ignored.
The character customization in DFO was not sandbox either because there weren't any meaningful restrictions. This allowed min-maxing for the best over all character build and created carbon copy clones all over the place. From an RPG perspective, everyone was the same a battle mage hybrid. UW, while more restrictive in skill choice, has more diversity from an RPG stand point.
The only truly sandbox feature DFO and UW have is the political meta game. But that one feature alone, especially since its part of the core game design and all things revolve around it, still makes DFO/UW more of a sandbox than 90% titles on the market. The only other games that come close to it are other actual sandboxes like MO and EvE (UO isn't modern). The direction AV is taking UW in terms of conquest and crafting will make the game be more sandboxy, but at its core it will forever be a conquest game because the entire game revolves and will continue to revolve around it. This isn't a bad thing, its serves it purpose which is to fill the "play to crush" niche.
ermm what ?
Paragraph 1 : I doubt anyone claimed DF was masterpiece on sandboxiness but the underlying framework was there for it to become a rich sandbox experience.
The character progression : there was one ! Isnt that more sandbox then just choose a build at char creation ?
Choosing one at char creation reminds me more of shooters which you load up your class on entering. Now that cant be named sandbox at all !
Paragraph 2:
DF: First and foremost it was skill based, you choose freely which skill you like to master. That in the end everyone mastered everything has to do with additionally themepark design decisions.
Counting the mix of spells within those skills it easily can go up to thousands of combinations.
DF:UW : 2 combat "skills" (now called roles) at once allowed .
Counting the spells in those skills it is exactly : 9 and no more.
Almost non existant customization, there is a set amount of possible combinations.
Paragraph 3:
DF:UW lickely, hasnt touched that political metagame so the stregths of it still shine ..but DF:UW ruined lots of the gameplay that leaded to holdings become worthless, conflict around player cities become less intriguing etc. etc. so in the end that sandbox feature git runed by DF:UW.
Btw beside the political metagame DF offered lots more. There was gameplay and playstyles viable even without participating in any political metagame or even being in a clan.
DF there was racial warfare possible, rogue solo playstyle.
More playstyles have been viable cause crafting was a tad better, example : through PvE hunting was something worth.
All this just displays in a excelnt way how DF had really a solid foundation to become a feature rich sandbox game but instead has deganerated to a arena combat themepark.
-----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)
Comments
Looks like you had good fun!
Just returned to the game (eu sever) , and it seems like alot of people are returning atm.
Games Played: Anarchy Online,Star Wars Galaxies,WOW,Eve,Darkfall,Vanguard, Fallen Earth,SWTOR,GW2,Tera,ESO,Wildstar, Black Desert, Archeage & Albion Online
Now playing: Conan Exiles & Rocket League
Games looking forward to: Diablo 4! & Star Citizen?
Where have all the "good" shills gone?
Where have all the "good" shills gone?
Steam numbers? Most of the playerbase (maybe 95%) had the game long before steam release.
But anyway the game is still good fun and the political warfare is still going on
Games Played: Anarchy Online,Star Wars Galaxies,WOW,Eve,Darkfall,Vanguard, Fallen Earth,SWTOR,GW2,Tera,ESO,Wildstar, Black Desert, Archeage & Albion Online
Now playing: Conan Exiles & Rocket League
Games looking forward to: Diablo 4! & Star Citizen?
Great video. Makes me wish I didn't go to bed after the siege.
This is a particularly good video to show people who may be interested in getting into the game. Stuff like this is what sandbox games are all about.
Nice video, I like what I saw there. I am going to be making a new account for this game very soon. I tried this game when it launched but I left in search of the greener grass. I think this is the game for me to be playing though. I am casual and roll solo a lot, but I am ready for the challenge and ready to meet some new peeps.
Again, great video.
I just started playing a couple of days ago and there are alot of people running around.
I also did not buy through steam.
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Doesn't this renders AV efforts to get DF:UW on steam as big FAIL ?
Also DF:UW is not being liked by steam population is a tragedy for DF:UW since it was their target playerbase after AV efforts to get rid of their original sandbox based community.
-----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)
this is pretty accurate..
The old community gave AV greenlight in one day.. yet av dont seem to bother to get it working with for example steamkeys..
Pretty sad..
Everyone also thinks that unholy wars is sandbox.. which it is not.. there is not a single feature ingame that can be catagorised as a sandbox..
I found that hilarious
yes it does.
Darkfall was never a sandbox period. Its always been a conquest games. The original vision of DFO was to be a sandbox game that never came true due to failures of the developers on various fronts. The only thing sandbox DFO ever had was player politics.
At least a couple of 1000 people have bought DFO through stream, so it wasn't a failure. New people buy through steam every sale.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
I'd still call it a sanbox, because there is no quest chain leading you by the nose. Sure, there's the feats to complete, but there is no clear path of A, B, C, D.
No gated content. No Gearscore, etc.
You log on and do what you want. Look at players like Sean Connery decided to make a career as a pirate, and now that scraping is nerfed, he has changed his occupation to Real Estate Agent of Agon. That's a perfect example of a player setting his own path, and making his own game.
You could do most of that in themepark games with various systems. The reason I won't call DFO a sandbox is because its too one dimensional. Its pretty much just a PvP game since everything else in the game is farily linear.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
name one?
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.world of warcraft is also open world pvp.. you call that a sandbox too???
The defination of a sandbox is where players dont have a static path to follow in either crafting building or settup of your char..
in UW everything is static.. housing is static citybuilding is static.. even the prowness system is static which is basicly a questiing system now if for example
Housing was dynamic.. you could place your house everywhere you want.
compared to df1.0 which had only ONE sandbox element which was the char progression.. FREE of choice of what skill you wanted to use and or skill up
even tasos dont know what a sandbox is because he is selling the game as a sandbox.
pretty funny
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.world of warcraft is also open world pvp.. you call that a sandbox too???
The defination of a sandbox is where players dont have a static path to follow in either crafting building or settup of your char..
in UW everything is static.. housing is static citybuilding is static.. even the prowness system is static which is basicly a questiing system now if for example
Housing was dynamic.. you could place your house everywhere you want.
compared to df1.0 which had only ONE sandbox element which was the char progression.. FREE of choice of what skill you wanted to use and or skill up
even tasos dont know what a sandbox is because he is selling the game as a sandbox.
pretty funny
First of all sandbox simply means freedom. The ability to build your house in the open world is some degree of freedom. Again, this is why I'm saying that being a sandbox isn't a binary, on/off designation. Most MMOs don't have open world housing of any kind. So DFUW offers more freedom in this case.So what if everything in DF is static? It's not ideal but it's alot more freedom than most other games offer.
I'm not saying wow is "a sandbox" just like I'm not saying DFUW is "a sandbox." The fact that you're even phrasing it like that shows that you're not even comprehending my point, which is that there's no such thing as a 100% sandbox. It's all a sliding scale. Yes open world pvp is a sandbox FEATURE even in wow. But wow also has an overwhelming amount of themepark features and those features dominate how the game is played. Alsowow doesn't have full loot, which you conveniently left out.
any example of a sandbox game you give me will have an enormous amount of restriction in an objective sense.
The character progression system in DFO was not sandbox as it was completely linear. There's less linear progression in UW than there was in DFO by the virtue of the removal of skill level restrictions (all skill can be unlocked at any time). And while there is a logical progression for leveling, it can be completely ignored.
The character customization in DFO was not sandbox either because there weren't any meaningful restrictions. This allowed min-maxing for the best over all character build and created carbon copy clones all over the place. From an RPG perspective, everyone was the same a battle mage hybrid. UW, while more restrictive in skill choice, has more diversity from an RPG stand point.
The only truly sandbox feature DFO and UW have is the political meta game. But that one feature alone, especially since its part of the core game design and all things revolve around it, still makes DFO/UW more of a sandbox than 90% titles on the market. The only other games that come close to it are other actual sandboxes like MO and EvE (UO isn't modern). The direction AV is taking UW in terms of conquest and crafting will make the game be more sandboxy, but at its core it will forever be a conquest game because the entire game revolves and will continue to revolve around it. This isn't a bad thing, its serves it purpose which is to fill the "play to crush" niche.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
name one?
Open world pvp with loot, non instanced housing, city building/sieging, the fact that you can craft almost anything in the game, no zones.world of warcraft is also open world pvp.. you call that a sandbox too???
The defination of a sandbox is where players dont have a static path to follow in either crafting building or settup of your char..
in UW everything is static.. housing is static citybuilding is static.. even the prowness system is static which is basicly a questiing system now if for example
Housing was dynamic.. you could place your house everywhere you want.
compared to df1.0 which had only ONE sandbox element which was the char progression.. FREE of choice of what skill you wanted to use and or skill up
even tasos dont know what a sandbox is because he is selling the game as a sandbox.
pretty funny
The character progression system in DFO was not sandbox as it was completely linear. There's less linear progression in UW than there was in DFO by the virtue of the removal of skill level restrictions (all skill can be unlocked at any time). And while there is a logical progression for leveling, it can be completely ignored.
The character customization in DFO was not sandbox either because there weren't any meaningful restrictions. This allowed min-maxing for the best over all character build and created carbon copy clones all over the place. From an RPG perspective, everyone was the same a battle mage hybrid. UW, while more restrictive in skill choice, has more diversity from an RPG stand point.
The only truly sandbox feature DFO and UW have is the political meta game. But that one feature alone, especially since its part of the core game design and all things revolve around it, still makes DFO/UW more of a sandbox than 90% titles on the market. The only other games that come close to it are other actual sandboxes like MO and EvE (UO isn't modern). The direction AV is taking UW in terms of conquest and crafting will make the game be more sandboxy, but at its core it will forever be a conquest game because the entire game revolves and will continue to revolve around it. This isn't a bad thing, its serves it purpose which is to fill the "play to crush" niche.
The thing that would make DFUW a full blown sandbox for me would be variety in professions (not different pvp classes). I want pve specialists, actual harvesters, crafters, treasure hunters, fishers, etc.The only thing really sandboxie about darkfall is there is nothing telling you what to do. No quests, although you could argue that feats are quests. You also get to spend your prowess points into whatever you skills or attributes that you want. Certain design decisions took away from lots of potential sandbox opportunities. Things like local banking, craftable housing placeable anywhere.
PS: Sandbox is to lego as Themepark is to LEGOLAND.
I said in beta that Treasure Hunters should have to spec to be Treasure Hunters, ala UO..
Too little, too late, I guess.
ermm what ?
Paragraph 1 : I doubt anyone claimed DF was masterpiece on sandboxiness but the underlying framework was there for it to become a rich sandbox experience.
The character progression : there was one ! Isnt that more sandbox then just choose a build at char creation ?
Choosing one at char creation reminds me more of shooters which you load up your class on entering. Now that cant be named sandbox at all !
Paragraph 2:
DF: First and foremost it was skill based, you choose freely which skill you like to master. That in the end everyone mastered everything has to do with additionally themepark design decisions.
Counting the mix of spells within those skills it easily can go up to thousands of combinations.
DF:UW : 2 combat "skills" (now called roles) at once allowed .
Counting the spells in those skills it is exactly : 9 and no more.
Almost non existant customization, there is a set amount of possible combinations.
Paragraph 3:
DF:UW lickely, hasnt touched that political metagame so the stregths of it still shine ..but DF:UW ruined lots of the gameplay that leaded to holdings become worthless, conflict around player cities become less intriguing etc. etc. so in the end that sandbox feature git runed by DF:UW.
Btw beside the political metagame DF offered lots more. There was gameplay and playstyles viable even without participating in any political metagame or even being in a clan.
DF there was racial warfare possible, rogue solo playstyle.
More playstyles have been viable cause crafting was a tad better, example : through PvE hunting was something worth.
All this just displays in a excelnt way how DF had really a solid foundation to become a feature rich sandbox game but instead has deganerated to a arena combat themepark.
-----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)