Thursday, December 4, 2008

Darkfall - So does it really exist?

Over the last few days I have been reading an interesting site.
The Noob Comic website which has been quite the fun site for comics has a little hidden area on their website.
In this area one of the writers for Noob Comic has been discussing his misadventures in Darkfall.

Located here
, the page has been updated on a regular basis for the last 3 or 4 days.

Basically Darkfall had been noted at one time to be "Vaporware", yet the last two months has seen a flurry of activity complete with a closed beta going.
Readers believe it to be the holy grail of PvP, complete with FPS mode or 3rd person real time combat, loot on death mechanics, and large scale battles.

Yup, believe that when I see it....

Anyways, the writer states...

"Aventurine have lifted my NDA obligations to allow me to post screenshots and comments as a preview of the game. I've been playing in beta for the last couple of weeks. This NDA lift is limited exclusively to what is posted here and I cannot otherwise give additional information, discuss the game, etc. etc"

The discussions of the game are quick little write ups with some humor and attitude thrown in, some great screenshots (this has also been an issue, as the graphics look dingy at times in some videos that are traveling the net), and some insight on how this game is progressing.

Now, just how long will it be until this launches? And please be careful doing any research, as this shows a tendency to up the hype machine from various forum posters, and some blogs.

Pretty scary how people think Darkfall = Christ.

Enjoy the posts.

2 comments:

Talyn said...

I never considered it vaporware, after all it's being developed by what seems to be a very small independent studio.

But an MMORPG built around FFA PvP? Darkfail.

I love some of the more freeform or sandboxy elements they claim to have. But all anyone talks about is the FFA, ie. ganking.

I love the freeform and sandbox elements being discussed in Earthrise too. But all I actually get to read from the forum posters is how they're looking forward to the FFA PvP with corpse looting. /sigh

This is what we get when a vocal minority gets to have a say. The only ones who actually enjoyed the FFA PvP in UO (and let's be honest, Darkfall is spiritually a UO3D) were the wolves. The ultimate problem that will plague Darkfall certainly, and Earthrise possibly, is that in wolf vs. sheep games the sheep pack up and leave and leave the wolves nothing to prey on besides other wolves. Wolves tend to be a cowardly lot, and don't really care to confront anyone on equal footing.

Darkfall will peak at UO's current population of 75k to 100k is my prediction. Which may be fine for such a small studio doing things their way.

I had hope for Earthrise to be the spiritual successor to SWG but the FFA wolves will likely kill that one too.

knightblaster said...

I completely agree with Scott.

FFA with corpse looting as a ruleset doesn't make for a very popular game. There are relatively few PKers in the gaming community, and basically everyone who is not a PKer is prey in an FFA+looting game, and the prey generally don't want to pay for the privilege of being preyed upon.

Honestly I think if the game were to have 75-100k it would be a stupendous success. I rather expect it will be much smaller than that.

The hype on the internet is mostly from PKers, because the PKers have not had a new game in a while. UO is old and tired now. EVE has PK as well, but a large, populated relatively "safe" area to avoid them (where most of the players seem to play most of the time). By and large, this is not a popular gameplay style, but the lobby for it on the internet is quite loud.