RIP UW, was a terrible mistake. DF1 with updates and tweaks (expecially the New Dawn version) is the best sandbox mmorpg ever created and i will go play there.
If that was the case, it would have had a massive player base. DF1 had some amazing ideas, but throw in a rubbish company and highly toxic community, you end up with a pos game. I jumped in on and off for about a year. The community was pretty bad and it seemed to contain mostly teenagers with chips on their shoulder ;(
Also, the game was riddled with bugs and a lot of the major guilds abused the flaws.
Kids were playing Darkfall?? Seems like mostly people around my age (35).. less than a dozen kids I had ever encountered in that game and the community was awesome, especially near the end!!
Bugs? That major guilds abused? Like what? I played the game for 7 years and have no idea what you are talking about..
It's sad to see any mmo close now because they aren't being replaced, just think how you would feel to see your favorite game close.
As much as I dislike some games I still would not want to see them close.
What frustrates me so is that a hybrid PVE -PVP version of darkfall without full loot would of been successfully. Everyone I know that ever tried it left for the exact same reason but they loved the core game world and combat. People that play this game say they need the fear of losing stuff to keep them playing, they are a small percentage, most people just want a fun game to play and dont mind working hard to build their character up. Sieges were the best part of DF and not because you had the change to take peoples stuff because they were FUN. And thats all you need to have a successful game.
Wow... it was easy to PVE safely if you played the game long enough to find a way.... and Unholy Wars had safe zones so you could learn how to PVE safely before leaving the safe zones... really wasn't much risk in this game unless you made the risk intentionally.
I don't know how many times I heard people say. "Don't try to change our game into carebear crap." Well now you don't have a game so maybe next time you should listen and quit flexing your finger muscles over the internet because you are badass.
They already changed the game for carebear crap... that was one of the reasons they lost some of their original playerbase... in Unholy Wars there was safezones and then you could join a guild and have safety within a guild city and then learn how to avoid PVP completely if you wanted to.... like paying attention to load lag for one thing. PVE-only players loved this game when they gave it a shot from my experience.
In concept, DFO was a decent game. Very sandbox like. However, some aspects just turned a lot of people off. Some did not like the graphics style. Some did not like the pvp style in the game. Others did like both or accepted both. If the game could have been played the way most wanted to play it, it may have done better. By that I mean that many that tried it and quit did not like being "ganked" constantly. There were suppose to be enough people to provide some "protection" to players in a variety of ways, but there just were not the numbers to support it. I came away from my time with DFO pretty much thinking this as well...good concept....not workable or fun as it was implemented.
Sounds like you never tried Unholy Wars... yes they tried to cater this game for you...
Sad to see an open world non linear quest hub game go down. It was fun but too much of time investment to regear after getting rolled time after time.
That was a downer I was constantly having to deal with but it beat soloPVE grind to catch up like in other games, at least the endgame content was available to everyone and grind was minimal outside of getting your next gear bag.
I still dont understand why developers like this wont follow the Guild Wars 2 route. more people would play and more will be willing to spend money for new models.
Guild Wars 2 was terrible!! AND YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT THE GRIND IN IT IN ANOTHER THREAD!!?!?
I hope that there will still be 2 more Darkfall launches on the horizon... Rise of Agon and then New Dawn.... maybe by that time Unholy Wars will have an expansion and be released for yet another launch??
That is my hope... and seems likely.
They were desperately trying to get people to log in who were subscribed... even had a global bank wipe in a way so that people would have to go out and play the game again.. but still many just would log in to pay taxes or to siege but otherwise not play as much as they used to..
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Full loot PvP for the win. Why people think full loot free for all PvP MMO's will end any different is beyond me. I fear of ROA and ND as well. Its never been the game or the mechanics, its always been retention in a full loot FPS style game. And I've never been proven wrong.
Now wait a minute.
If the game was bug free, polished and fully featured and it failed then you might have a point. But Darkfall has always had issues. It's a bit short sighted as well as unfair to look at a product that was never "that well done" and then say "oh, it's because it was full loot open world pvp".
As opposed to "it was never a great product for those who wanted full loot and pvp".
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If the game was bug free, polished and fully featured and it failed then you might have a point. But Darkfall has always had issues. It's a bit short sighted as well as unfair to look at a product that was never "that well done" and then say "oh, it's because it was full loot open world pvp".
Sounds like you are referring to the original Darkfall... not Unholy Wars.. that one was polished and from my experience had no bugs.
Darkfall has been around for 7 years.. think its possible you have not followed it close? Well obviously you haven't...
I can't even think of one bug they had the last time that I played.. been like that for years too.
Also.. how was it not fully featured?
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If the game was bug free, polished and fully featured and it failed then you might have a point. But Darkfall has always had issues. It's a bit short sighted as well as unfair to look at a product that was never "that well done" and then say "oh, it's because it was full loot open world pvp".
Sounds like you are referring to the original Darkfall... not Unholy Wars.. that one was polished and from my experience had no bugs.
Darkfall has been around for 7 years.. think its possible you have not followed it close? Well obviously you haven't...
I can't even think of one bug they had the last time that I played.. been like that for years too.
Also.. how was it not fully featured?
From what I did follow it was my understanding that it launched with few dungeons, no sea towers, less wildlife, no enchanting and there were discussions about things missing that first game had. I do know there was a bug where you would log out and you would be missing items in your inventory.
Was I a Darkfall Unholy Wars player? No. I followed the game casually because it was interesting.
I've seen players complaining about the differences between it and the first game. Of course some people have said that "it's a different game and that's why the differences" but then who was this new game meant for if it alienated it's original player base?
So you are saying the game was perfect fully featured and polished and it didn't last because of full loot pvp? Well, if that is the case then I will cheerfully withdraw my post.
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From what I did follow it was my understanding that it launched with few dungeons, no sea towers, less wildlife, no enchanting and there were discussions about things missing that first game had. I do know there was a bug where you would log out and you would be missing items in your inventory.
Was I a Darkfall Unholy Wars player? No. I followed the game casually because it was interesting.
I've seen players complaining about the differences between it and the first game. Of course some people have said that "it's a different game and that's why the differences" but then who was this new game meant for if it alienated it's original player base?
So you are saying the game was perfect fully featured and polished and it didn't last because of full loot pvp? Well, if that is the case then I will cheerfully withdraw my post.
May not have launched with that but when I looked for dungeons and sea towers they were there, but yeah there was no enchanting but plenty of things the first game didn't have like dyes... and lots of things that I missed from the original game like the FFA PVP harshness element seemed gone, but it was very functional without any bugs that I had ever experienced and never heard about but I was not active on the forums so maybe there was some?
The game was meant for attracting new players, I think.. while keeping the loyal player-base.. but failed on both accounts.. to be honest I think that this was because of lack of advertising and because interested people were too scared of the idea of full-loot to try it.. but in reality people were running around mostly in armor that was dyed and custom made..... totally didn't have to worry about losing gear much, unless they actively took risks.
I played the game for 7 years... and check if it has by some miracle come back online every few hours just in case.... but honestly it was hard to stay an active player the whole time because lets be honest here, its hard to keep playing the same game for years and years I would get burned out after awhile and I know others felt the same way.
We needed constant incoming new blood. We got it, but was not enough to keep the game going. I must admit that at the end though, many people playing were new comers compared to those who started at the beginning.
Playing Unholy Wars while coming from the original was a big disappointment but I got used to it and must admit that overall it was much more new player friendly and likely to keep someone new. The original game seemed like it was nearly impossible to get new players.. at least Unholy Wars had hope and did get many new players but people tend to burn out after awhile and the game had been out for years...
Fact comes down to it, we needed new blood.. no advertising! Almost no word of mouth either. Fail.
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I hope they learn a valuable lesson here. If conditions are difficult for you, don't force it trying to make mmos(it will just get worse) and stick to offline games you can sell and move on.
I remember a video from 4A Games that was posted somewhere on this forums showing their working conditions in Ukraine and they managed to make 2 of the best single player shooters ever made, Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light. They didnt even have proper tech, room space and money. I believe that was before Koch Media acquired the Metro IP, not sure how they are doing now.
Good luck to Aventurine and i hope they learn from 4A Games' experience.
Besides the fact that DFUW was wayy too grindy, I still had some of the best experiances of my gaming life in this game.
I remember one of the first days playing the game, my guild built a few ships and we sailed out into the oceans near these ice blocks. All of a sudden a blue dragon came out from the sky and started attacking our ship. It was pandemonium, the entire teamspeak was lighting up, people were dying left and right. A ship went down, everyone was dead, a second ship went down, I watched as two of my friends were blown apart by the dragon's ice blast.
Finally me and two of my crew turned the boat around and started to sail off, the Dragon caught up to us and took out my first mate, me and a random crew member leaped off the boat and started swimming for shore (Which was miles off).
Eventually the Dragon dissapeared into the mists, all the boats were destroyed, only me and the random crew member made it out alive. Then we arrive on land only to be surrounded by an opposing guilds raiding party, they killed the random crewman with me, slashing him down on their horseback.
They let me live and told me to tell my guild not to invade their territory, one of them even let me have his mount to ride back with (we later became freinds and I joined their guild for a few months).
Needless to say it was an amazing experiance, something Ill never forget, and in that type of chaotic moment, the game truely shined.
Darkfall UW i thought had reasonably good graphics, there are games out there currently with worse, and i'd choose Darkfalls aesthetics over Wildstars any day of the week, the only real problems i had with it concerned the lack of skill caps, and the whole full loot pvp thing, the ow-pvp could have been handled better than it was, no mistake, and safe zones really needed to be improved, the method used by CCP for Eve online, would probably have been a better fit as the areas were quite small, and having several towns all within a larger 'safe area' would have been better, then there is the whole full loot thing, very few players will put up with games that have that kind of thing, even partial looting isn't all that popular a concept, and i think it was probably the combination of these factors that really weighed down on any potential players, i don't really think advertising the game would have improved things, it was always a niche game, ultra niche perhaps compared to other PVP orientated games, i am fairly sure that if Daum introduced Full loot pvp that it would cause the game to go into the same kind of death spiral that Darkfall suffered from.
AV really dropped the ball with UW. They should have stuck with the DF2010 update, updated the NPE and just focused on adding content after that.
People need to remember/realize that DF1 never, ever actually failed, Aventurine just stopped working on it in favor of UW. Even after the players knew DF1 was getting shut down, there was still a decent population. More than UW had once people realized how shit it was.
Wow, I knew the situation in Greece was turning dire, I just didn't expect it to effect a company that created products which existed largely in a virtual space. I'd be really interested to read an interview regarding the specifics of this decision, and what exactly has forced them to close down. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Darkfall UW i thought had reasonably good graphics, there are games out there currently with worse, and i'd choose Darkfalls aesthetics over Wildstars any day of the week, the only real problems i had with it concerned the lack of skill caps, and the whole full loot pvp thing, the ow-pvp could have been handled better than it was, no mistake, and safe zones really needed to be improved, the method used by CCP for Eve online, would probably have been a better fit as the areas were quite small, and having several towns all within a larger 'safe area' would have been better, then there is the whole full loot thing, very few players will put up with games that have that kind of thing, even partial looting isn't all that popular a concept, and i think it was probably the combination of these factors that really weighed down on any potential players, i don't really think advertising the game would have improved things, it was always a niche game, ultra niche perhaps compared to other PVP orientated games, i am fairly sure that if Daum introduced Full loot pvp that it would cause the game to go into the same kind of death spiral that Darkfall suffered from.
Just imagine if Unholy Wars had the same amount of people try it as the original game had though... many would have stayed and enjoyed it more... but how to get these people? Needed advertising but people also needed word of mouth, because they may have already felt that they understood Darkfall and that it was not for them..
Having larger safe-zones is a terrible idea I think because being in a clan city was safe for the most part.. people had to get over the walls to get in so if you really didn't want to fight you could just pay attention to load lag or be warned of the system log or whatever just log out and wait for a few minutes... for the most part you could go about doing what you wanted safely. The safe-zones were totally not needed. I think the game was much more exciting starting out without safe-zones and at least the starting areas in the first game still was populated.. the safe-zones in Unholy Wars was totally abandoned.. having more abandoned area would not have helped.
What you say is very heartbreaking for me to hear... full-loot worked for solving the problems of so many things!
Risk vs reward.. a real adrenaline rush was possible to say the least
Something to grind for beyond endgame being gear... and all gear was destroyed from usage
Everything crafted and crafting was much more valuable than any other other type of game...
Keep in mind though that Darkfall was around for 7 years.. will BDO be around for as long??
Even now, Unholy Wars was totally playable and fun for me, right before they shut it down.
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Darkfall UW i thought had reasonably good graphics, there are games out there currently with worse, and i'd choose Darkfalls aesthetics over Wildstars any day of the week, the only real problems i had with it concerned the lack of skill caps, and the whole full loot pvp thing, the ow-pvp could have been handled better than it was, no mistake, and safe zones really needed to be improved, the method used by CCP for Eve online, would probably have been a better fit as the areas were quite small, and having several towns all within a larger 'safe area' would have been better, then there is the whole full loot thing, very few players will put up with games that have that kind of thing, even partial looting isn't all that popular a concept, and i think it was probably the combination of these factors that really weighed down on any potential players, i don't really think advertising the game would have improved things, it was always a niche game, ultra niche perhaps compared to other PVP orientated games, i am fairly sure that if Daum introduced Full loot pvp that it would cause the game to go into the same kind of death spiral that Darkfall suffered from.
Just imagine if Unholy Wars had the same amount of people try it as the original game had though... many would have stayed and enjoyed it more... but how to get these people? Needed advertising but people also needed word of mouth, because they may have already felt that they understood Darkfall and that it was not for them..
Having larger safe-zones is a terrible idea I think because being in a clan city was safe for the most part.. people had to get over the walls to get in so if you really didn't want to fight you could just pay attention to load lag or be warned of the system log or whatever just log out and wait for a few minutes... for the most part you could go about doing what you wanted safely. The safe-zones were totally not needed. I think the game was much more exciting starting out without safe-zones and at least the starting areas in the first game still was populated.. the safe-zones in Unholy Wars was totally abandoned.. having more abandoned area would not have helped.
What you say is very heartbreaking for me to hear... full-loot worked for solving the problems of so many things!
Risk vs reward.. a real adrenaline rush was possible to say the least
Something to grind for beyond endgame being gear... and all gear was destroyed from usage
Everything crafted and crafting was much more valuable than any other other type of game...
Keep in mind though that Darkfall was around for 7 years.. will BDO be around for as long??
Even now, Unholy Wars was totally playable and fun for me, right before they shut it down.
I don't really have to imagine, when the game was on Steam it had the whole free trial thing, and the game had a significant spike in player numbers, they came, they saw, they left. I can't help but think that one of Darkfalls biggest handicaps was the full loot thing, if that wasn't a thing, then perhaps all those players would have stayed, because putting the game on Steam definitely put the game out there, and onto peoples radar. Darkfall has had its chance to shine, that it didn't was probably because of the factors i mentioned, which probably were prohibitive enough that retention was so poor.
I don't really have to imagine, when the game was on Steam it had the whole free trial thing, and the game had a significant spike in player numbers, they came, they saw, they left. I can't help but think that one of Darkfalls biggest handicaps was the full loot thing, if that wasn't a thing, then perhaps all those players would have stayed, because putting the game on Steam definitely put the game out there, and onto peoples radar. Darkfall has had its chance to shine, that it didn't was probably because of the factors i mentioned, which probably were prohibitive enough that retention was so poor.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Rust is still wildly popular, and full loot. They're very different games, but that singular mechanic is shared. I'm not denying it might be a niche sort of design, but it's worked for other products, so I'm not positive you can place all of the blame on that alone. I think you're more on point in your previous post, that the combination of those factors concerning ow-pvp, a lack of skill caps, and a need to redesign safe zones were together, with full loot, the deterrent more than a single system.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Full loot? Um Ultima Online been around probably longer than you? Ya full loot open world pvp works. It just has to be easily as gained as lost. Mistake here was a beyond terrible company, little vision and did not go F2P with cash shop.
I don't really have to imagine, when the game was on Steam it had the whole free trial thing, and the game had a significant spike in player numbers, they came, they saw, they left. I can't help but think that one of Darkfalls biggest handicaps was the full loot thing, if that wasn't a thing, then perhaps all those players would have stayed, because putting the game on Steam definitely put the game out there, and onto peoples radar. Darkfall has had its chance to shine, that it didn't was probably because of the factors i mentioned, which probably were prohibitive enough that retention was so poor.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Rust is still wildly popular, and full loot. They're very different games, but that singular mechanic is shared. I'm not denying it might be a niche sort of design, but it's worked for other products, so I'm not positive you can place all of the blame on that alone. I think you're more on point in your previous post, that the combination of those factors concerning ow-pvp, a lack of skill caps, and a need to redesign safe zones were together, with full loot, the deterrent more than a single system.
You are probably correct, i doubt any single factor is responsible for the games ultimate demise. If those features were either improved or removed, you have to wonder if Aventurine could finally make the game as successful as it truly deserved to be, though i suspect that making the game more appealing to PVE players might have sidelined the more PVP orientated players in the process, though as Daum has, so far at least, demonstrated with BDO, you can cater to both types of players to some degree.
Yeah, I played a bit of the Darkfall online reboots and they have a long way to go to get to the point DFUW was in terms of polish and well almost everything (other than world size/lore/enchanting). I hadn't played DFO and now that I've played it a bit it just feels too dated. Hopefully someone will buy DFUW.
Yeah, I played a bit of the Darkfall online reboots and they have a long way to go to get to the point DFUW was in terms of polish and well almost everything (other than world size/lore/enchanting). I hadn't played DFO and now that I've played it a bit it just feels too dated. Hopefully someone will buy DFUW.
While I never played or even wanted to play the game, it's never good to see a game getting shut down. Feel bad for the fans who are losing a game they liked.
DF was a swedish game (or was it norwegian?) that ran out of money and took too long to make, was moved to greece because the greek government offered them tax subsidies and money to spur their own economy....if i can remember aventurine did projects for the greek navy and shipping company software to stay afloat which is why DF lasted so long anyway.
DF never got to see its true form, as the original creators didn't last too long after the move to greece.
Even if the abomination that was Unholy Wars did decent theyd still be out of business at this point.
I can only imagine if the original creators got DF released back in the early 2000's it would have been a glorious game as mmorpgs were glorified playgrounds that early and people still liked difficulty, punishment, and grind.
Problem with the two competing relicensed 3rd party reboots is they are only focusing on making the game for the pvp crowds, which is what aventurine did and what caused the game to remain a low populated game....all it needed was some quality sandbox added to the mix to keep the game populated with people others could gank, rather than the game being nothing but gankers trying to trick others into walking into a trap. Other than that it was just a clan metagame...which it did well but you need more than that...
I'm sure both projects will be populated with the same group of hacker as the older game and be just a small group of pvpers playing a seige metagame against each other while all that potential and game world remains untouched and ignored.
So much potential the original DF had. Even if either of the two reboots could get DF to where it should have been waaay back in the early 2000's the age of mmorpgs is over....though they might be able to make some money off it and keep it going for the 50-250 pvpers who will play it for the sieges.
One of them needs to (after getting in order the game to where it was when it shut down) start implementing some rewarding non pvp related things to do, a game within a game related to the world that would put people on the map in various places and allow for some hunting mechanics for pvpers and you would probably be able to see some 1000 man sieges some day with more than that core crowd of pvpers who just duel for practice in keeps all day waiting for the next siege. Though by that time it will be 30 years dated and rough to play. Of all the mmorpgs that were ever made Darkfall had the greatest potential and even with all its flaws, sucking at pvp, getting raped by hackers whenever i was out and about....this game was my favorite mmorpg and the one i spent the most time playing. For someone who maybe won 4 pvp encounters their entire time playing that speaks volumes to what kind of game remained in secret hidden inside darkfall ignored by most due to ganking. So sad. Honestly the best pve game ive played that wasnt connected to a storyline and scripted path.
Sorry for the rant (no one will read it) but i had to leave my own personal obituary.
Darkfall wasn't doing great, so they made a smaller and less impressive version. How else was this going to end? I got flamed in beta and banned from their forums for trying to tell them this was the wrong way to go ...
Comments
Bugs? That major guilds abused? Like what? I played the game for 7 years and have no idea what you are talking about..
Wow... it was easy to PVE safely if you played the game long enough to find a way.... and Unholy Wars had safe zones so you could learn how to PVE safely before leaving the safe zones... really wasn't much risk in this game unless you made the risk intentionally.
They already changed the game for carebear crap... that was one of the reasons they lost some of their original playerbase... in Unholy Wars there was safezones and then you could join a guild and have safety within a guild city and then learn how to avoid PVP completely if you wanted to.... like paying attention to load lag for one thing. PVE-only players loved this game when they gave it a shot from my experience.
Sounds like you never tried Unholy Wars... yes they tried to cater this game for you...
That was a downer I was constantly having to deal with but it beat soloPVE grind to catch up like in other games, at least the endgame content was available to everyone and grind was minimal outside of getting your next gear bag. Guild Wars 2 was terrible!! AND YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT THE GRIND IN IT IN ANOTHER THREAD!!?!?
I hope that there will still be 2 more Darkfall launches on the horizon... Rise of Agon and then New Dawn.... maybe by that time Unholy Wars will have an expansion and be released for yet another launch??
That is my hope... and seems likely.
They were desperately trying to get people to log in who were subscribed... even had a global bank wipe in a way so that people would have to go out and play the game again.. but still many just would log in to pay taxes or to siege but otherwise not play as much as they used to..
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If the game was bug free, polished and fully featured and it failed then you might have a point. But Darkfall has always had issues. It's a bit short sighted as well as unfair to look at a product that was never "that well done" and then say "oh, it's because it was full loot open world pvp".
As opposed to "it was never a great product for those who wanted full loot and pvp".
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Darkfall has been around for 7 years.. think its possible you have not followed it close? Well obviously you haven't...
I can't even think of one bug they had the last time that I played.. been like that for years too.
Also.. how was it not fully featured?
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Was I a Darkfall Unholy Wars player? No. I followed the game casually because it was interesting.
I've seen players complaining about the differences between it and the first game. Of course some people have said that "it's a different game and that's why the differences" but then who was this new game meant for if it alienated it's original player base?
So you are saying the game was perfect fully featured and polished and it didn't last because of full loot pvp? Well, if that is the case then I will cheerfully withdraw my post.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The game was meant for attracting new players, I think.. while keeping the loyal player-base.. but failed on both accounts.. to be honest I think that this was because of lack of advertising and because interested people were too scared of the idea of full-loot to try it.. but in reality people were running around mostly in armor that was dyed and custom made..... totally didn't have to worry about losing gear much, unless they actively took risks.
I played the game for 7 years... and check if it has by some miracle come back online every few hours just in case.... but honestly it was hard to stay an active player the whole time because lets be honest here, its hard to keep playing the same game for years and years I would get burned out after awhile and I know others felt the same way.
We needed constant incoming new blood. We got it, but was not enough to keep the game going. I must admit that at the end though, many people playing were new comers compared to those who started at the beginning.
Playing Unholy Wars while coming from the original was a big disappointment but I got used to it and must admit that overall it was much more new player friendly and likely to keep someone new. The original game seemed like it was nearly impossible to get new players.. at least Unholy Wars had hope and did get many new players but people tend to burn out after awhile and the game had been out for years...
Fact comes down to it, we needed new blood.. no advertising! Almost no word of mouth either. Fail.
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
I remember a video from 4A Games that was posted somewhere on this forums showing their working conditions in Ukraine and they managed to make 2 of the best single player shooters ever made, Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light. They didnt even have proper tech, room space and money. I believe that was before Koch Media acquired the Metro IP, not sure how they are doing now.
Good luck to Aventurine and i hope they learn from 4A Games' experience.
I remember one of the first days playing the game, my guild built a few ships and we sailed out into the oceans near these ice blocks. All of a sudden a blue dragon came out from the sky and started attacking our ship. It was pandemonium, the entire teamspeak was lighting up, people were dying left and right. A ship went down, everyone was dead, a second ship went down, I watched as two of my friends were blown apart by the dragon's ice blast.
Finally me and two of my crew turned the boat around and started to sail off, the Dragon caught up to us and took out my first mate, me and a random crew member leaped off the boat and started swimming for shore (Which was miles off).
Eventually the Dragon dissapeared into the mists, all the boats were destroyed, only me and the random crew member made it out alive. Then we arrive on land only to be surrounded by an opposing guilds raiding party, they killed the random crewman with me, slashing him down on their horseback.
They let me live and told me to tell my guild not to invade their territory, one of them even let me have his mount to ride back with (we later became freinds and I joined their guild for a few months).
Needless to say it was an amazing experiance, something Ill never forget, and in that type of chaotic moment, the game truely shined.
People need to remember/realize that DF1 never, ever actually failed, Aventurine just stopped working on it in favor of UW. Even after the players knew DF1 was getting shut down, there was still a decent population. More than UW had once people realized how shit it was.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Having larger safe-zones is a terrible idea I think because being in a clan city was safe for the most part.. people had to get over the walls to get in so if you really didn't want to fight you could just pay attention to load lag or be warned of the system log or whatever just log out and wait for a few minutes... for the most part you could go about doing what you wanted safely. The safe-zones were totally not needed. I think the game was much more exciting starting out without safe-zones and at least the starting areas in the first game still was populated.. the safe-zones in Unholy Wars was totally abandoned.. having more abandoned area would not have helped.
What you say is very heartbreaking for me to hear... full-loot worked for solving the problems of so many things!
Risk vs reward.. a real adrenaline rush was possible to say the least
Something to grind for beyond endgame being gear... and all gear was destroyed from usage
Everything crafted and crafting was much more valuable than any other other type of game...
Keep in mind though that Darkfall was around for 7 years.. will BDO be around for as long??
Even now, Unholy Wars was totally playable and fun for me, right before they shut it down.
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
I can't help but think that one of Darkfalls biggest handicaps was the full loot thing, if that wasn't a thing, then perhaps all those players would have stayed, because putting the game on Steam definitely put the game out there, and onto peoples radar.
Darkfall has had its chance to shine, that it didn't was probably because of the factors i mentioned, which probably were prohibitive enough that retention was so poor.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
DF never got to see its true form, as the original creators didn't last too long after the move to greece.
Even if the abomination that was Unholy Wars did decent theyd still be out of business at this point.
I can only imagine if the original creators got DF released back in the early 2000's it would have been a glorious game as mmorpgs were glorified playgrounds that early and people still liked difficulty, punishment, and grind.
Problem with the two competing relicensed 3rd party reboots is they are only focusing on making the game for the pvp crowds, which is what aventurine did and what caused the game to remain a low populated game....all it needed was some quality sandbox added to the mix to keep the game populated with people others could gank, rather than the game being nothing but gankers trying to trick others into walking into a trap. Other than that it was just a clan metagame...which it did well but you need more than that...
I'm sure both projects will be populated with the same group of hacker as the older game and be just a small group of pvpers playing a seige metagame against each other while all that potential and game world remains untouched and ignored.
So much potential the original DF had. Even if either of the two reboots could get DF to where it should have been waaay back in the early 2000's the age of mmorpgs is over....though they might be able to make some money off it and keep it going for the 50-250 pvpers who will play it for the sieges.
One of them needs to (after getting in order the game to where it was when it shut down) start implementing some rewarding non pvp related things to do, a game within a game related to the world that would put people on the map in various places and allow for some hunting mechanics for pvpers and you would probably be able to see some 1000 man sieges some day with more than that core crowd of pvpers who just duel for practice in keeps all day waiting for the next siege. Though by that time it will be 30 years dated and rough to play. Of all the mmorpgs that were ever made Darkfall had the greatest potential and even with all its flaws, sucking at pvp, getting raped by hackers whenever i was out and about....this game was my favorite mmorpg and the one i spent the most time playing. For someone who maybe won 4 pvp encounters their entire time playing that speaks volumes to what kind of game remained in secret hidden inside darkfall ignored by most due to ganking. So sad. Honestly the best pve game ive played that wasnt connected to a storyline and scripted path.
Sorry for the rant (no one will read it) but i had to leave my own personal obituary.