Darkfall Online

[Syri]

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/4/view/news/read/12700/Darkfall-Launch-Delayed
who didn't see this one coming?

 

[Tallen]

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/4/view/news/read/12700/Darkfall-Launch-Delayed
who didn't see this one coming?

7 years and counting....still

 

[LordjOX]

Who cares.
Thousands more get to test in one week. Trials for people that are truly interested.

 

[Ctuchik]

well its just a month.

and i dont mind it. means i can buy the game without having to starve for a week would have been hard this month hehe.

 

[Legean]

how do you sign up for the early access? The announcement says that as many people as they can handle will be allowed into the game but doesn't say where you apply!

 

[Tallen]

how do you sign up for the early access? The announcement says that as many people as they can handle will be allowed into the game but doesn't say where you apply!

At the moment, no-one can answer this im afraid.

 

[Legean]

I found it: Darkfall Forums - Announcements in Forum : Darkfall News

Sign up to the forum if you havn't already and then follow the link in the post to sign up for beta.

 

[Tallen]

Thats the beta sign-up.

There is no guarantee signing up for beta is the same thing they are talking about. This is why i say no-one knows for sure. No-one has said for certain that there will be any extension of the beta as such or any type of open beta.

Some think it'll be clan beta sign-ups only.

Some people think it might be the official forum members who get to test.

Some think it'll be random from the official forum members.

Some think it'll be the old site members who will be selected (long standing supporters fo the game).

Some think it'll be a bonus for pre-ordering the game (not available for pre-order afaik and no official word as to wether or not it ever will).

Some think it'll be a website promotion, such as Fileplanet, or a magazine/subscription promotion.

As i said, at this moment, no-one really knows, but a beta sign-up is pretty much the only thing you can try right now.

 

[LordjOX]

They've gathered 200k+ beta applicants that have registered forum accounts. They've got the dxdiag information from those aswell. They have no apparent, sensible reason to open another application phase, just to get a skewed intersection of the current beta applicants.

Apparent for the reasons mentioned below. Sensible, since they are strapped for time and resources and such a process would just be consuming on both people that want to sign-up and the developers themselves.

First of all, only official forum members are currently testing (apart from developers or other stakeholders). Secondly, that selection has so far been [partly] random. Thirdly, since beta applicants are connected to forum accounts they do have signup dates (long term followers).

Some think it'll be a bonus for pre-ordering the game (not available for pre-order afaik and no official word as to wether or not it ever will).

Not currently available on pre-order. But if you had taken the time to read yesterdays announcement they will come forth with pre-orders and pricing in mid-february. "A pre-order will be made available mid-February. "

Anything else is just speculation.

 

[Faeldawn]

They've gathered 200k+ beta applicants that have registered forum accounts. They've got the dxdiag information from those aswell. They have no apparent, sensible reason to open another application phase, just to get a skewed intersection of the current beta applicants.

Apparent for the reasons mentioned below. Sensible, since they are strapped for time and resources and such a process would just be consuming on both people that want to sign-up and the developers themselves.

First of all, only official forum members are currently testing (apart from developers or other stakeholders). Secondly, that selection has so far been [partly] random. Thirdly, since beta applicants are connected to forum accounts they do have signup dates (long term followers).



Not currently available on pre-order. But if you had taken the time to read yesterdays announcement they will come forth with pre-orders and pricing in mid-february. "A pre-order will be made available mid-February. "

Anything else is just speculation.

Everything is speculation.

As far as im concerned there is no pre-order until i see it offered and priced. More to the point, is it wise to pre-order a game like this? I know pre-orders can be cancelled but the whole purchase/retail/download thing for this game is still a bit of an unknown.

 

[LordjOX]

Which is the reason why the postponed it.

Pre-order it or not, noone will care. I don't know what kind of grudge or immutable skepticism you have towards Darkfall though.

 

[Legean]

I realise signing up there doesn't guarentee a beta spot, most likely far from it. But signing up at least puts you in the hat to be chosen out of so to speak. Problems with choosing all the people who first signed up to the forums is that they probably did a very long time ago. Theres no saying how many are still interested as people move on, quit MMOs/Gaming, play other games they dont want to give up right now ect any number of reasons.

Also a bit unlucky for me as I, like many others I would guess, heard and were interested in Darkfall a long time ago but didn't join the forums as it was such a long way from being released.

 

[Tallen]

I joined the forums years ago and signed up for the beta quite recently but i honestly don't want to be a part of the test anymore. I decided a while back that I would not be a good choice and neither would anyone who had expectations for this game dating back so long...it's just never going to live up to what I want for this game, no game could.

I will wait for release, perhaps a few months afterwards as well, to even contemplate if Darkfall is a game i might be able to enjoy rather than enter with unrealistic expectations from day 1. I went through all this with Dragon Empires, was part of an awesome community for a long time, wrote fan fiction and all sorts of things and in the end the game was dropped.

I still hope Darkfall will be a good game as the chance to play a true sandbox mmo would be great.

 

[Tallen]

Not currently available on pre-order. But if you had taken the time to read yesterdays announcement they will come forth with pre-orders and pricing in mid-february. "A pre-order will be made available mid-February. "

Anything else is just speculation.

I missed that, but it's still nothing concrete and i don't think the website has a pre-order system in place yet or even any mention of one in the usual "coming soon" banner ads most games use (although admittedly i haven't looked). Until i see the game available for pre-order, im afraid I won't be assuming it's going to happen.

A pre-order would normally suggest a retail release. I cannot remember seeing a pre-order for a download-only game, although i guess it's a reasonably simple thing to do. But why would anyone pre-order something that has no shipping requirements and can be purchased and downloaded at the same time? Perhaps it'll be a huge file and pre-orders can download it a week early? Perhaps, as with WAR and a few other games, pre-order might include early access?

Many people said this game would never release in January because there was no ordering system, or even a pre-ordering system in place. If they release the game for pre-order i wonder if that ties them to certain responsibilities to deliver the product? Perhaps Jan 22nd was never a realistic release date and in that same vein, there is no difference at this moment between this and the new release date until some form of ordering method is unveiled?

Again it's more speculation, but in the absence of information, speculation is all we have.

 

[Legean]

The article mentioned pre-orders having priority on getting into the game if they have to do a staged release if the demand is greater than they can can cope with. Also they said there will be retail copies a few months after release. Ofcourse its easy to say these things but at least they have a plan!

 

[LordjOX]

A pre-order would normally suggest a retail release. I cannot remember seeing a pre-order for a download-only game, although i guess it's a reasonably simple thing to do. But why would anyone pre-order something that has no shipping requirements and can be purchased and downloaded at the same time? Perhaps it'll be a huge file and pre-orders can download it a week early? Perhaps, as with WAR and a few other games, pre-order might include early access?

"The pre-orders will get priority for early access to the game."
"The pre-orders will also get priority for the game launch if we have to go to a staged release."
"The pre-orders are necessary so that we can have some measure of the demand."
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=106082

First of all, pre-orders will get an early access to the game. Secondly, if they do a staged release, pre-orders will get priority access. Third and most important, pre-orders give hard numbers about how many, that will be entering the game on 25th of February.

Why do they do this? Why not just set up a poll or survey and see who is going to buy it? The answer is simple. Money. If you have paid or reserved money via your bank card to purchase the game at a later time, you have a stake in the game. You are going to show up.

I didn't see people flinch, when GOA and affiliate retailers took pre-orders for the CE edition of WAR, over a year before final release. Going through several month-long delays.

Many people said this game would never release in January because there was no ordering system, or even a pre-ordering system in place. If they release the game for pre-order i wonder if that ties them to certain responsibilities to deliver the product? Perhaps Jan 22nd was never a realistic release date and in that same vein, there is no difference at this moment between this and the new release date until some form of ordering method is unveiled?

Again it's more speculation, but in the absence of information, speculation is all we have.

It ties them to nothing other than they have to deliver the game at some point. It has been the same with all major MMOs developed in the last few years. AoC and WAR being the most prominent with delays. They always had a pre-order system before the first announced date, that they never made.

Even so, people reserved away their money to Mythic and Funcom.

What does this tell us? Even a well made ordering method beforehand gives no guarrantee. This is not specific for Darkfall, but it has in the recent years applied to all major MMOs.

Why don't people believe in Darkfall? The game is there. It is being developed. It is being played by testers. Hell, information leaks through the NDA like water through a broken pipe.

I will wait for release, perhaps a few months afterwards as well, to even contemplate if Darkfall is a game i might be able to enjoy rather than enter with unrealistic expectations from day 1.

Yet you know you will hit the pre-order button in mid-february, since you have been following this thread for so long.

 

[Tallen]

Pre-orders can be cancelled so players might be able to gain early access but then cancel their pre-orders before the release date. This happened with Warhammer. You are under no obligation until you have recieved the product to pay anything (although im not sure of the rules in other countries, but this is true for the UK). Up till this time you can cancel and never pay out a penny.

People didn't flinch at Warhammer per-orders as it was a standard ordering system for a product backed by EA, the biggest in the industry. Aventurine will not recieve any funds until the product is shipped (and if they do, people are still entitled to a full refund if they choose not to recieve the product on release day), so pre-orders do not have any stake in the game and are under no obligation to buy or turn up on release. It's nothing more than a statement of intent.

I think people do believe in Darkfall, the vapourware thing is fading away, im guessing they just don't have much confidence in Aventurine.

But no, you are wrong im afraid, i won't pre-order and i won't play from release. Even the Warhammer pre-order went pear-shaped a few times and i'd rather just stay away from this whole thing, let the dust settle and then see what the reality is.

I have been loosely following the development of this game on-and-off since the days of BW which has made me a bit cynical about the whole thing. I will definitely try this game at some point though, even if it is a dog

 

[Ctuchik]

pre orders are still a more accurate way of finding out then a public poll thats guaranteed to have 90% klicking something just to scew the results.

 

[LordjOX]

Pre-orders can be cancelled so players might be able to gain early access but then cancel their pre-orders before the release date. This happened with Warhammer. You are under no obligation until you have recieved the product to pay anything (although im not sure of the rules in other countries, but this is true for the UK). Up till this time you can cancel and never pay out a penny.

People didn't flinch at Warhammer per-orders as it was a standard ordering system for a product backed by EA, the biggest in the industry. Aventurine will not recieve any funds until the product is shipped (and if they do, people are still entitled to a full refund if they choose not to recieve the product on release day), so pre-orders do not have any stake in the game and are under no obligation to buy or turn up on release. It's nothing more than a statement of intent.

Cancelling your pre-order voids any pre-order benefits though.

True, usually retailers only draw money from your bank account after they've shipped it. However, pre-orders come in many forms. In WAR you had this thin pre-order DVD case you could buy (over a year before release). Thus you had a stake, albeit a little stake in the game.

It might also be that pre-order and release sales are two seperate entities. Pre-order a minor sum to get the benefits, whereas release sale bears the full release cost.

 

[LordjOX]

The last bit is a bit speculatory, but it's healthy to see things from different angles.

Hello again betaleaks boards, I used to use these all the time back in the day for informative reasons, now I'm brought back to foretell some warnings about the current state of DF if they do in fact plan to release it within the next few months.

I've been in the beta for a few months now, and if anything I am thoroughly disgusted with the state of the game, the next to useless developers, and I find it hilarious that they've wasted 6 years worth of time and money to develop a resource harvesting grindfest.

My big gripes:

The world isn't that big, despite the fact that your character jogs at a rather slow pace for most of the time, unless you simply macro devour food and stam pots to regain stam as fast as you lose it, it only takes about 35-45 minutes to go from capital to capital, most of the space inbetween is for the most part completely empty except for trees, and other nice little decorations such as rocks and the like, any ruins or structures either denote hamlets, city sites, or mob spawns.

To cross the main continent from end to end takes about 1.5 hours if you take the flattest paths possible.


The combat is pretty bland, your characters attacks range from one to three moves based on the weapons your using, and they are basically overhead chop, left and right swing. You have no direct control over your basic attacks...

Blocking is pretty much useless, sure it reduces damage but it consumes so much stamina in the process that you would be better off simply dodging and running around out of the path of the opposing swings then by trying to block anything.

2h weapons cannot block, if they are supposed to do so they either don't or don't mitigate any damage.

As of the last build I recall playing (high 60 or low 70), stats weren't implemented yet so weapon damage didn't vary a great deal unless if you found some nice high multiplier weapons off of some nice mobs somewhere.

Archery was pretty much all I used for PVP, hitting someone in the back causes increased damage, and while bows have a ballistic trajectory over greater distances, it's not too hard to get accustomed to using them. So with a basic crap bow and a ton of arrows I would run around jacking people in the back for anywhere between 8-15 damage a shot, all the while kiting them and their buddies across the continent.

Skill progression is grindtastic, Lineage II players will feel right at home, after grinding magic for about a week (by shooting my useless magic missiles into the sky in the middle of nowhere) I had about 50 Magic Skill and could use a small slew of new spells if I could somehow afford them from the vendors in town. the devs never helped us with this so if you didn't want to macro fish and sell the 9000 fish you could catch over the course of a good 12 hour afk macro session, to maybe make half of the 15000 gold required to learn the magic skill then w00t. I don't know of many people that macro'd magic to the extent that I did and I certainly couldn't find a way to buy all the spells that I wanted to test.

Most ranged spells are slow....so slow that they are mostly useless in PVP unless the guu really really isn't paying any attention and moves into the patch of the spell...to compensate for their slowness they all have an AOE range to some effect, with the beefier versions of mana missile having a larger range and doing more damage...but it's still mostly useless in PVP because they will have ample time to simply move out of the way.

Clans and Stones, heres how they work:

It costs about 2k gold to get a clan charter from an NPC, theres no size minimum for starting one but you will need a few people to help you grind mobs to get the 2k gold in the first place since most gold comes from selling loot.

For another 2k or so (I can't remember) you can buy a Clan Shard, which is a small blue rock that allows anyone with General or Higher standing to claim clan stones, this works by simply walking near the stone and double clicking the Clan Shard, it took the beta server about 4 hours to figure this out despite being given pretty direct instructions in the beta forum. The person who claims that town becomes the Mayor, currently you can't remove or change mayors because they haven't fixed it yet, what good the mayor is or does I don't know as we never had enough time to build up a town to actually find out.

Now you have to grind resources to build little building templates that you use to build basic structures for your clan city, this requires a skill that costs a ton of gold and each template requires about 300 gold and about 5-10 pieces of wood and has a 66% chance fail rate, each template weighs a damn lot, but you only need to drag it to a bank and then have a guildmember pull it out of a wilderness bank by your city and relay the crap until you use it to facilitate building something.

This is really all there is to the game I've read what people have posted about 'sieging' and whatnot but I've never heard of any sieges going on while I was bothered enough to actually play the beta, and I'd be suprised if the mechanic was even activated to begin with. They didn't activate the clanstones until about two weeks before Christmas, and they claim that the game was already "tested by professional testers" that managed to miss all the major bugs and massive design flaws with the beta versions 56-68.

So heres my predictions as a pragmatic player of loads of MMO's over the years.

Adventurine has stated that they will be doing a competitive 'pre-order' process that will allow people with preorders to play exclusively on the main Euro server for about a week before DF's release, they've stated that they will not wipe this progress whatsoever.

I believe they are doing this in order to attempt to provide additional funding for more serves in the EU for localization purposes, and because they want to make a slight return on their game before the ghost is out of the bag that it is mostly lacking the gameplay part of any game and is a massive resource grinder...which will drive people away from their release but as long as they are paying a 50+ euro preorder for it they won't much care.

I speculate that DF won't have much of an open beta before they finally decide to release the game whenever they actually do that, because it WILL hurt sales.

I predict that DF will ship and sell to some extent but I feel that the 'shadowbane effect' will occour again and 1/2 the purchasing population will stop playing within the first three months of the game, which would probably cancel Adventurine's ideas of a North American release, which I would wait for since I prefer to stomp the NA guilds, and typically NA mmo servers are more competitive.

 

[Ctuchik]

The last bit is a bit speculatory, but it's healthy to see things from different angles.

well, granted the game is aparently releasing soon, he is clearly expecting a whole damn lot from a beta.

 

[Tallen]

well, granted the game is aparently releasing soon, he is clearly expecting a whole damn lot from a beta.

Also the post is nowhere near blanced, all negative, no positives mentioned at all, he clearly doesn't like it so is going to sandbag it completely. I remember reading similar posts from WoW closed beta testers back in the day.

Also, im not sure how much stock to put in a person who claims to be a beta tester who doesn't even know what company he's testing for. Small point perhaps, but how hard is it to get the name Aventurine correct? Personally I think it speaks volumes about the character of the poster.

This being said, i wouldn't be overly surprised if it's genuine. Not a lot would surprise me about DF.

 

[LordjOX]

Nothing is for sure with this leak. The obvious part is that he is entirely subjective. There is not objectivity. The game is most probably not all negatives.

Spelling errs are of no consequence. I've seen some spelling errors in academic papers, but it does not make the research or conclusion dubious or invalid.

 

[Legean]

I was going to comment on his spelling of the publishers name too. I know spelling mistakes don't mean its invalid but it does detract from it even if it is irrational. Also he says something like 'when I could be bothered to play' and all his macroing meaning he wasn't able to afford spells or reach the top of skills, even implying what other people have said about seiging is wrong because he hasn't seen it. This isn't the kind of person I would enjoy gaming with and its highly likely I wont enjoy the same things he will. I think the writer is after some fast fix game like all the other recently released MMOs out there where most things are handed to you.

Maybe I actually have low standards as far as polish in this game goes as long as the basics are there. Once they have a steady cash flow they can go about improving animations and graphics if its in the best interests of the game.

 

[Ctuchik]

Spelling errs are of no consequence. I've seen some spelling errors in academic papers, but it does not make the research or conclusion dubious or invalid.

no but posting stuff such as "i spent x hours macro farming skills" and "when i actually could be arsed playing the game" does make the whole post quite uninteresting.

 

[Nive11en]

So... any lucky beta invitation winners here? Although.. pointless question - NDA forbids sharing such information.

*sigh* DF forums been down for a while, my only consolation has been the Darkfall leaks blog.

 

[LordjOX]

Half the guys commenting at the darkfall leaks blog are morons though.

 

[Nive11en]

Same if not worse situation at the official forums.

Hey, but occasionally you find these little gems, like the recent Hitler wants Darkfall vid.

 

[LordjOX]

Update from Tasos:

Update January 25th, 2009 - Darkfall Forums

Spoiler

Forums had been down due to several DDOS attacks. Since it became an issue, we took the forums down and have taken all appropriate measures to make a recurrence less likely. The game servers have not been affected.

The trial faced some issues during the initial stress test when the volume of the invitees taxed the patching and the login system. This was to be expected and it's the nature of a stress test. Testers experienced periodic low download speeds and various minor errors and hiccups which were soon dealt with. We increased our patching capacity and corrected small errors, until everything was running smoothly. For launch we will have in place a peer to peer system which should greatly improve download speeds and make the downloading and patching run smoothly. There have been a couple of server crashes since we’re still running in debug mode. The issues causing the crashes have been addressed and we have issued a few new patches in this time. Servers are currently down for scheduled maintenance for a few hours tonight, during which we are also running an internal stress test. Servers will be up again right after this.

So far there have been three waves of invites sent out and these proved to be a very good stress test for the download, patching and login systems. We would like to thank the testers for their persistence during this initial stress test and their patience while we corrected the issues that came up. Most players entered the game, and have been playing since yesterday.

Now that things have stabilized, we’ll start sending out more invites. We will keep sending invites out, every day when possible, and until we hit our capacity.

The NDA is still in effect, because this remains a testing period. Even though this is the release candidate client, previews based on this experience may not be indicative of the release quality of the game, especially not while you're consciously trying to break the game during stress testing. The game is still in debug mode so that we can deal with any issues that arise. Other than that, we are trying to simulate the launch, in order to better prepare for it. The testers in-game so far have been sending us very positive reports on their gameplay experience, even so, the NDA will be in effect while there's still testing going on. As soon as we're out of debug, the stress test is over, we'll lift the NDA.

If you haven’t received an invite yet please don’t take it personally. You very well might receive one soon. Please respect the invite process; it was made to be as fair as possible, while also being the most helpful for the game. We appreciate everything the community has done for the game and while we regret that we can’t make everyone happy, it’s impossible when considering the large volume of the applications. Even so, there will be a great number of players allowed to playtest. We really understand the impatience, and we’re doing our best to get as many into the game as possible.

Please do not try to bypass the invitation process by emailing or PMing us. We’re afraid that it’s not possible to do so. This is an automated procedure, and we could not possibly manually process all the messages we’re getting at this stage.

As far as the latest major patch goes, these are just some of the updates included:

* The interface has been completely reworked and re-skinned.
* Camera modes have been updated. You can now use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.
* Warhulk movement has been enhanced. You can cycle camera modes using F12
* Mount controls have been tweaked
* Rivers will now carry you downstream.
* All character attributes have been enabled and they display signals when they increase.
* NPC animations have been updated
* Rune Stones (recall stones) have been enabled.
* You can buy more slots for starter weapons at a vendor.
* Directional attacks for all melee weapons have been added. You can slice vertically or horizontally.
* Player Journal and Clan Window have been updated.
* High score quests have been enabled.

* Time limit high score quests are enabled
* Massive AI update: Many more monsters have been added.
* AI behavior has received a significant update.
* Wildlife has been enabled. Tigers, bears, lions etc. can be found in nature.
* Underwater monsters are now enabled.
* Dungeon monsters are now enabled.
* Monsters will now visibly taunt you
* Roaming monster packs are enabled.
* Some monsters will send you personal taunts.
* Environment system is fully enabled. Ambience and weather will now change over time and as you travel. One Darkfall day is now approximately 5 hours long.
* In-game help has been enabled.
* Updates to armor graphics.
* Character creator has been updated.
* More player skills have been added.
* Clan cities that belong to your clan have been updated to display on your world and mini map.



There were also numerous smaller fixes and updates included in this patch and in the subsequent few smaller patches.

We’ll follow up with more status reports on the game, and various other updates as needed.

 

[Faeldawn]

Interesting read. All sounds like pretty standard pre-launch stuff so fingers crossed for a Feb release.