Darkfall is on the verge of becoming a reality. Shockwaves were sent through the MMO community on Friday as Tasos Flambouras announced that Darkfall will be releasing in European markets on January 22, 2009. This announcement was followed by the deafening silence of “vapor trolls” who were once over-spoken forum activists convinced the game would never see the light of day. Not only is Darkfall coming out, but it is only 6 weeks from going live.
Every MMO player who loves this genre even a sliver as much as I do has a vested interested in seeing Darkfall become a success. If you have been playing MMOs for any length of time, you are no doubt feeling somewhat disenchanted with the state of the genre over the last few years, especially if you are a veteran like me who remembers the way things used to be. You might remember a time where a new MMO didn’t look exactly like the one before it, a time when innovation was profitable to a developer.
The Death of Innovation
It is easy to figure out how and when innovation died. A certain company made an MMO some years ago that made unimaginable amounts of money by using a model that dumbed down the game to appeal to a wider audience. MMOs are expensive and risky business propositions, and in the last few years we have seen 40-80 million dollar debacles that have brought their developers to their knees or out of business. The safest route for profit is to look at the industries most profitable game, and build the same dumbed down model for mass appeal they used. The profit being rewarded to the companies who follow in the footsteps, combined with the innovative games being debacles, has sent a dangerous message to new developers and helped fuel a trend of linear copycat theme-park MMOs.
Sandbox games have traditionally offered their players freedom, something that most of the more recent games have been lacking and some newer-school players may have never experienced. The freedom is yours to go anywhere without being boxed in by mountains that always seem to mysteriously bottleneck into a loading screen. The freedom is yours to pick a character that is yours to shape, instead of being pigeon-holed into some specific role where for some reason can figure out how to use a single type of weapon. These are the promises that a sandbox game makes, but unfortunately there has not been a successful one made since Asheron’s Call.
Ending the Cycle
Whether you believe that Tasos will deliver what he has been promising us for years or not, before you jump on bashing bandwagon, stop and think about how a successful Darkfall will affect the MMORPG genre. If a sandbox game like Darkfall is financially successful, it will send a message to developers that not only is there a market for sandbox MMOs, but there is money to be made in innovation. Think back and imagine what this genre would look like today if Asheron’s Call and Everquest 1 had switched places in terms of who came out on top financially. If any of the sandbox games from then until now had done well, I don’t think we would find ourselves in a market full of copycat games.
When was the last time you played an MMO where the death penalty really made you fearful of dying? When was the last time you could explore in an MMO without hitting an artificial wall of mountains, or you actually were completely lost? These are the type of things that have long been gone from the genre. Now most of developers making the big name MMOs don’t even have enough innovation to make their own world. Is anyone else as sick as I am of watching these stupid prepackaged MMOs come out that are based on some old franchise? Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Conan, and Warhammer are all games you are supposed to be excited about, and I feel like these devs are the same guys who used to play Dungeons and Dragons and buy those little premade box adventures because they didn’t have the originality to come up with their own.
Darkfall deserves your best wishes, even if you don’t plan on buying it. It is a vessel of hope to try to stop the madness that has turned what was once the best genre in all of video gaming and reduced it to an experience that is akin to sitting on a ride in Disneyland. You get in, you sit down, you go the one way there is to go, you watch the dolls dance, then you get up and exit with probably a lower IQ than you had before you got on. If you’re on the fence about buying Darkfall, think about the money you spent on MMO ideas far worse than this one. I think it is worth the chance to finally show support for someone who is willing to take the big risk, and show other developers that we are willing to pay for something that is original.
I know some of you will flame me and try to brand me a fanboi, and I would argue that I am a fanboi of the genre and what it should represent. I also know that for a lot of you reading, Darkfall is your last stand in MMOs. I can’t blame you for going all-in on this game after all that has happened. If you have read my words here and agree with me, I ask that you make sure you tell a friend and pass the word along; we are going to need it now more than ever.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
I just loved the rush back in the days with UO where EVERY kill counted..
You killed someone, he could drop an crappy sword or he could drop 100 of each reg or even an house paper.
I loved the fact that I had bags with 30 of each reagent + some crappy armour and an weapon. So when I died, I ran to the bank grabbed an bag and recalled back to the fight..
Fucking awesome! And darkfall has this!
My first MMORPG was the original SWG, so yeah I miss the freedom of *not* having levels to grind out that only serves to separate me from my friends and prevent us from grouping or prevent me from adventuring where I want to.
However I don’t believe in 100% sandboxes either. They’re boring. I’m not always in the mood to “create my own fun” — I play games for the entertainment, the escapism, whatever, but they’re supposed to have the “fun” already bundled in. If I choose to go off on my own path then great, don’t prevent me from it — encourage it, but give me some directed content as well. Giving me that choice is also part of being a “sandbox.”
The problem with Darkfall, aside from its incredibly immature and venomous community, is its seeming focus on being pre-Trammel Ultima Online in 3D, the end. In other words, a hardcore PvP wolf vs. sheep game. I’ve yet to see a single aspect of the game that indicated I’d be able to have all kinds of adventures, blahblah. All anyone talks about is ganking, PK, whatever you prefer to call it. And that just doesn’t sound fun to me. If I want to PvP I’ll play a game with *real* PvP not this slow, clunky pathetic excuse we have in MMOs. They “claim” to have hundreds of dungeons, quest content, etc. but it hasn’t gotten any attention. Is it even there? How many other games have claimed they had Features XYZ when they really did not?
I’m glad it’s coming out, and I hope it’s everything the UO/Darkfall fans (fanbois?) are searching for. I even hope it has something that would get me interested, but I won’t dare to hold my breath on that one.
I am with Scott on this.
The game will not appeal to a large audience. It will become another niche title due to the harsh systems in place…
You state in your article…
The freedom is yours to go anywhere without being boxed in by mountains that always seem to mysteriously bottleneck into a loading screen
No, instead you will be locked into a never ending war of gankers killing you all the time and taking your stuff, and laughing the whole time as they make others lives miserable.
I will not subscribe to this mechanic.
I’m going to wait it out with Darkfall. I hope it delivers on everything in promises, but I’m skeptical that it will. While Im still enjoying Warhammer and have no plans of leaving, if I start hearing good things about Darkfall’s gameplay, I could see myself playing both.
I’m going to wait for some bloggers to actually buy it and play it for a few days/weeks.
Only after I see what they write about it will I consider buying it.
This is my most anticipated MMO since I was in the EQ1 beta.
The “ganking and PK’ing” is definatly what will make this fun or not. It all depends on how the system works. If (like UO) you are rewarded for ganking, then people will do it. Shadowbane was nowhere near as bad with PK’s, and it had full range PvP, player built keeps, etc.
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So much of this is relying on the under riding systems of the game. From the world shaping (defensible places to build keeps), pvp rewards/penalty systems, ease of crafting replacement armor. Let alone the fighting mechanics themselves.
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Like the article points out, this game could very well prove to designers the viability (or non-viability for that matter) of innovation in the genre. There is so much more to this game than just “pk’s and gankers.” Outside of those things stated above, there is also a HUGE emphasis placed on crafting, hireling npc guards/crafters/resource collectors, intelligent AI (goblin archers try to kite the player). A combination of AoE and the ability to hurt your friends on accident place less emphasis on large scale gankings. Not to mention naval combat and everything involved there. Another thing ive been asking for for many years, out of game communication. In game whispers received as text messages on your cell phone! pure win. Browser based communication/auction house. Imagine the loss of productivity in the white collar world if you could play on the WoW auction house at work!
This article is in agreement with what I have been thinking for a long time. Ultima Online was the first game I played, back when I was 12-13 years old. I had so much fun every time I played. It can definitely be annoying getting pked, which happened often in that game, but I loved having people out there who were pkers, because I joined an anti-pk guild, and we went around looking for red players to kill (without penalty), in fact we were rewarded in status for killing reds. Not having pkers, or assholes or whatever in games makes it boring. People who do that make the game fun and challenging. I used to mine a lot, and I would always have the constant possible threat of getting ganked and have my ingots stolen, but it made it exciting, and it made me decide to explore for less traveled areas to mine at. Besides that, there was so much more to that game than PvP, I didn’t have a character that did much fighting at all for months (doing mining/blacksmithing, and other skills like that) and I had a lot of fun with it. Being able to go out and find a horse and tame it (once your skill was good enough), then have a horse to ride or sell was cool. Anyone who has played UO knows the importance of a game like Darkfall, or Mortal Online.
Other games, like Shadowbane were a lot of fun as well, but it is definitely true, that as more and more games came out, they got very dull, monotonous, repetitive, and limited in the things you could do. Plus, PvP is much more exciting when it means something to get killed. That also makes people think twice before running up to someone and attacking them, because no levels, means you have no clue what that guy is packing or how good their pvp skill is.
There were other games I had hopes for in the past that didn’t pan out (like Dark & Light), so until I can try the Beta or play a trial version I probably won’t buy it. But I hope for the best, because if this game has half the things they are promising, then it will be the best game ever, in my opinion of course. But I will play it for a long time.
Oh, the RUMOR is that the game will be downloaded and it will not cost anything to buy the actual game and that the first month (or weeks) will be free.
Thats not a rumour….its wishful thinking….
I’m looking forwards to Darkfall…provided they can deliver on half of what they have promised it should be a good game. The popular MMO’s are there are built for the average retarded 12 year old button masher…I’d love to see something more complex instead of dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Vanguard was and is there…but a craptastic launch has ruined that game forever.
Oh and, skill systems are still grinding. Wether you are grinding XP for levels or mindlessly hacking away to increase skill points its all still grinding ;) But I do appreciate the fact that I will not be locked down to pre-formed templates …. but that does lead to min/maxing :(
I don’t want my arguments ignored, so I’ll get just one insult in and then keep the rest of this comment civil: You pretentious meganerd.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me say that there are no “shoulds” in game design like hardcore fans of certain genres or franchises seem to think there are. I can think of only two exceptions. From a business perspective, a game “should” be financially viable/successful. From a player’s perspective a game “should” be fun. All other “shoulds” are just pretension on the part of the complainer.
As a hardcore player with a certain set of expectations and values, you may want certain things from an MMO and you may consider these important in creating a game that appeals to you and “deserves” your money. However, since making and running games is a business as much as it is an art (we can argue about whether that “should” be the case another time), a game cannot be catered to a single groups set of desires or needs if it hopes to be successful. In MMO development, especially, designers have to consider a much wider range of desires and playing styles if they hope to command a large enough market share to keep their game running. That addresses the two *real* shoulds in game development: making it financially successful and making it fun for a target audience.
You can argue that MMOs are “best” if they follow some set of rules that would make you and your cohorts happy, but if those rules are only fun to your small group, then the game probably won’t be financially successful and it probably won’t be fun for many other people either. And no, exposing common players to the joys of your desired hardcore mechanics is probably not going to convert them in large enough numbers to really be all that successful. Some people have fun exploring new worlds, not fighting over gear. Some people have fun grouping with friends to complete mindless tasks, not taking down the hardest dungeon bosses. That doesn’t make their way of having fun any less valid that your own, especially not from a financial perspective at a development studio or publisher.
I hope that Darkfall offers you and the crowd of MMO gamers out there that love this particular flavor of play a chance to have fun the way you want to have fun. But pretending that your feature checklist is the way MMOs “should” be run, or that Darkfall is the last bastion of MMO development intelligence, is just plain ignorant. If the game is fun for a big enough target audience and financially viable, it’ll be a success. Otherwise, no matter how perfectly it matches your idea of the pinnacle of MMO design, it’ll go the way of Tabula Rasa. That’s not wrong. It’s just the business of art.
I was on the Darkfall site earlier reading about the game and it struck me how similar it sounded to Asheon’s Call. AC was my first and the only MMO I really stuck with for any length of time because nothing else out there offered the latitude, complexity, depth and independence in gameplay that AC had. I agree with all of the article, this game sounds like what AC2 should have been and I look forward to it.
pvp wont be that common in DF because of the risk probably after the first couple months and as far as a venomous as Scott says yes we are venomous but we are not immature we welcome anyone to come play darkfall but we are pvpers come join the fun please but know that you are entering a dangerous world and you could kill me or I could kill you so it adds another element that should be in every MMO
In reply to the “not supporting the griefing mechanic” and “pretentious meganerd” posts:
I think these two comments are in the same vein. You think the only audience for a full loot PvP game is the ‘hardcore.’ Well EVE has proven that wrong.
People don’t mind risk; in fact even people who like to craft or play merchant (in the case of EVE) enjoy the thrill of virtual danger.
The divide stems from the overlap in features. When the PvE crowd (for lack of a better term) has no content except cool new toys and moves to play with, that’s what they’ll whine for. But the PvP’ers rely on the moves and toys being a certain way (ie. balanced for PvP, not to give PvE’ers new toys and PvE balance). So the devs have actually created a flawed system that aims to please two completely opposite playstyles with the same tool.
UO had this symptom in spades. The features were balanced for PvP and it was heralded as the measuring stick from then on. But its only attraction for other playstyles was dungeons, which had become PvP hotspots. When subs declined, they implemented the quickest solution; they changed their one tool (dungeons and character skills) and targeted PvE’ers. Which obviously pissed off the PvP’ers.
So the moral of the story is, you can’t please two conflicting playstyles with the SAME tool. I’d say EVE Online is a fantastic demo of what could be. Not only are the tools for PvP vs. “PvE” more detached (ie. you can please BOTH crowds instead of see sawing and screwing one side or the other), they complement each other quite well.
I laugh at all you folks who think this will be some kind of gankfest. It’s as if you forgot everything about darkfall except the open pvp/ffa loot. Yes, FFA/full loot games are notorious for being gank-fests, but that is due to not building the game around such rule-sets.
Veteran players will NOT be exponentially more powerful than a character just starting out. They will NOT have massive hp pools and be impossible to hit. 4-5 NEW (basic skills) players pose a real threat to 1 veteran player. By that logic 2 decent characters will be a real threat to 1 veteran (maxed out skills). If your getting ganked in darkfall it is, believe it or not, most likely your fault. Travel in a group, be aware of your surroundings, and most importantly JOIN A GUILD. Guildless solo’ers = sheep
Aventurine did not put in ffa/full loot in as an afterthought. They did not follow the WoW/EQ model of games and just slap FFA on it. If they had done this of course it would be a gankfest, but they didnt. Darkfall knew what is was about, is free of influence from “investors”, and built the game how THEY wanted to.
In all honesty, i love the feel of danger from FFA/full loot, it keeps me on my toes and makes you have to think and be active…not sit there half-asleep button mashing like a retard. I love that i can fuck somebody up if they give me some lip, and that other players respect each other more because there ARE repercussions for their actions. I’m tired of being bound by artificial “rules” that force me into this “disneyland ride”.
The more I read about Darkfall, the more I have a fealing that its innovation is to go backwards to cater people that played MMOs before WoW or are “hardcore”.
Is it really innovation? Retro has been done over and over again in other genres. I guess it’s time for MMO-genre now.
Of course, I’m only writing how I’m seeing it from couple Darkfall blogs and forums. Anyhow, I think it’s nice to have a new game for people who desire “the olde days”.
“These are the promises that a sandbox game makes, but unfortunately there has not been a successful one made since Asheron’s Call.”
EVE
@Odin
You are being pretentious.
“That addresses the two *real* shoulds in game development: making it financially successful and making it fun for a target audience.”
This is correct; but you went into a huge rant, because you assume Darkfall’s intended audience is too small to support the >10 million euro investment.
You didn’t need to lecture to Paragus for as long as you did when this could’ve been stated in two to three sentences.
Yes I am the meganerd. Your reading video game blogs, and writing 4 paragraph responses to them. I’m honest about who I am, so stop trying to take the moral high ground like your above this.
There are plenty of games out there that suit your play-style if you want to raid and kill bosses, to get better loot, to raid, to kill a bigger boss, to get better loot, and so on.
I agree, this game has a lot to do with Asheron’s Call, and I love that. I read there is even the spell “Mana to Stamina” from one of the previews. This shows me that Tasos has his head in the right place.
As mutant was saying, this game’s budget is only a fraction of what it cost to make games like Vanguard, Warhammer, WoW, and Age of Conan. This makes the likelyhood of it making a profit much better,
As mutant was saying, this game’s budget is only a fraction of what it cost to make games like Vanguard, Warhammer, WoW, and Age of Conan. This makes the likelyhood of it making a profit much better,
And has the visual quality to match.
Ugly characters, animations are bad, and really, can we expect stable servers from a start up?
Dreams I say!
On the other hand, I think we’re to the point now where it’s proven that “massively multiplayer” doesn’t work with uber eye candy. Case in point: Age of Conan where to get the quality of graphics they had to sacrifice an open world and instead use population-controlled zones.
I’d accept Darkfall’s last-gen graphics if it means more systems can render a massive amount of players and more importantly, if they have a next-gen server cluster that can handle a massive amount of players. Every.single.MMO I can think of that ever promised “massive PvP,” sieges, etc. has their servers crash when it actually happens.
Problem is, I don’t see Darkfall being the one to pull off anything truly next-gen when everything they’ve been aiming for is decidedly first-gen — UO3D. I doubt they’ve had the foresight and budget to create a truly next-gen server structure that will handle this any differently than anyone else has to date.
I’d would really not like to see them fail. But the feature list of this game really does have “hardcore” written all over it.
I think a lot of developers fail at simply creating a game that has high usability. I have almost zero information on the game, but the little I have read (from the noob comic review) leads me to believe that the game controls are different to the genre standard.
Which means that in FFA, you will be getting ganked as you attempt to become familiar with a set of unfamiliar controls. Frustration will ensue.
But still, I have yet to see a single person actually admit they are in the beta (except the aforementioned noob comic person who is highly suspect as a source of information due to personal connections to the devs), and so I wonder…
Little over a month until launch and no large scale testing.
Optimist Jim wants them to pull it off. Realist Jim is cocking an eyebrow.
DF has made numerous promises and hasn’t produced any kind of marketting to back up it’s claims; a recent interview said that marketting was pointless. Well, i’m not even considering buying the game until at least 3 months after launch has gone by. I feel that the company will have a ton of bugs/balance issues to work out and I don’t need to be frustrated by them.
I wish good luck to the game and will be sad if it dunks like so many others recently. Even with blockbuster games out there that are turning everybody’s head there should still always be enough of an audience for more niche products.
But… try as I might, I can really really not imagine the game to be fun. I for one am happy that the ultra-harsh hardcore days of MMOs are long gone, never to return.
YMMV ofc.
Why do people log in to places like this and fill the comments with negative doom and gloom when none of us even know what the game is like besides the developers description? Seems like everyone in here that is angry, has a PvE style of play. You’re complaining and trying to influence people who want a PvP centered game, we aren’t going to give up on it before it even launches! Deal with it. Powerhouse companies like EA, Funcom and Mythic have failed recently with games that are class focused and have similar play styles to the unnamed behemoth of a game that doesn’t need to be mentioned here and most of us looking forward to DFO don’t care. If you don’t like the idea of this game, go somewhere else. Some of us like this kind of MMO style, and if it turns out that there are only 5,000 of us left in the world then so be it. If you want to bitch about a really horrible game then go off to the “barbie online playhouse” and call them care bears, because the DFO people hear are only interested in hearing from people who like the idea of this game whether it does well after launch or not we still like the idea this game was based on. Here’s something from the developers…
“Darkfall is optimized for both player versus player action and for massive battles.”
If you don’t like that statement and want a rich PvE experience then go play WoW. WoW does that very well. If you want something that has a rule set similar to old school UO or DT then enjoy. If you don’t like getting ganked or ganking then WTF are you doing reading articles about DFO? Go away!
Darkfall looks great, but i dont like PvP, can I play anyway?
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This game is geared towards the PvP market, so you may find Darkfall a bit too harsh for you. That being said, we are aiming at having more useful tradeskills than any released MMORPG to this date, so you may find something of interest to you in Darkfall despite all the PvP action. Most Clans will need a large range of player smiths, farmers, tailors, hunters, fishermen, alchemists, miners, etc., and they will offer relatively safe cities and good accommodations for those willing to spend time crafting items, or providing supplies for the Clan. In theory you could play Darkfall for a year, and never have to take part in any PvP as long as you are careful, and dont venture too far into dangerous territories. Also remember that the Darkfall world is absolutely huge, with hundreds of small islands scattered all over the world. Nothing is preventing you from finding a hard to reach, hard to find little spot of the world, set up a house, and live in peace with a few friends, hunting in the nearby woods, or adventuring into the local dungeons without seeing other players for weeks at a time.
ROFL DarkFall, more like VaporFail. Sorry, but I feel no other way. I’m going to point and laugh really hard on Jan 21st when they announce the game isn’t launching due to “unforseen technical difficulties, check back next May”.
I’m an ex AC’er so truly understand how important the genre needs a game that promises what first enticed us into the world of online gaming to begin with, WoW was truly the pinnacle turn of destroying what was before and what should have continued in the evolution or innovation dept of MMO’s.
Instead it borrowed from others, slapped a new label on it, bought some shiny new servers and plugged them in and *gasp* tested the eff out of them so that they actually worked instead of just loading them full of it’s premade crap and going forward…I’ll give them 5 points out of 5 for getting s t a b i l i t y right from the get go, but the get a -100 for dumbing down the mechanics. Shine a turd all you want, it’s still a turd, and it still stinks.
I hope Dark Fall is everything everyone who is truly interested in is, if, and that’s a Biiiiiiiiiiiiiig if, it’s real #1, and actually launches #2.
Survey says….I’m gonna pass. No offense to everyone out there, not a hater, just an old guy who’s been online gaming since the early 90’s in some form or another and I smell another Dawn (for you kiddies, this was a game that had high value/high innovation, extremely interesting features and was looked forward to by a huge amount of people but in the end turned out to be fake and never ever launched).
Paragus is correct about darkfall. It would be a wonderful game should it prevail. The problem is their lack of providing information and updates, failure to abide by promises and a 9 year evolution. My guild thrives on the type of game Darkfall would provide, but we are no longer waiting on it year after year like some. Should it come out, last for a few months and provide all that has been promised, then we will gladly jump in. Most likely it will be another Mourning, Dark and Light or any other hyped scam or failure of the last 6 years.
Sorry, but just because it’s not a WoW clone, does not make Darkfall innovative. There have been successful class-less, skill based, sandbox games that have come out before it – EVE Online anyone?