Darkfall Online RULES

Okey im a rabid fanboy of Darkfall Online.

Ive waited for the game for 5 years because it is the best game ever. Its my number one game.

Although it is open PvP, dont sell the game short for allowing unrestricted PvP. It is actually based on a system of player reputation, clan politics and clan warfare, racial warfare, and most importantly the game has player accountability built into it.

However, none of those things stop you from doing something. The biggest thing about Darkfall is that it offers virtually unlimited player freedom. There are no levels or classes. You choose what you want to do and you (the player) get to customize your character's spells and skills endlessly without gimping yourself.

There is just so much good stuff in Darkfall that you would really need to go to the website and join the forums. Beta will be soon, maybe this year.

And Darkfall Online is NOT vaporware. Its been in full production only 3 years. Two years before that it was still being designed by 4 guys in a basement. But theyve had a website for 5 years and ive observed the game for 5 years. I was playing Asherons Call (the first one) at the time that i discovered Darkfall.

Darkfall will be a great game for me. Here is the link, go read the FAQ, and dont post on the forums until youve read the FAQ unless you want to get flamed.

www.darkfallonline.com



The game is approaching beta. It is not released yet.

edit -- Forgot to mention that there is land ownership and housing where the clans (guilds) actually own and patrol lands and resources (like ore mines). And there is clan warfare where you can fight another clan for its towns. You can hire NPC guards to protect your house and your town. NPC guards can be equipped with any items you can afford to place on them and they can be told to patrol the town or other area. And NPCs can be hired to follow you around and help you or fish all day at a river to collect fish for you, ect... Fun stuff.

Also this game can be somewhat compared to Shadowbane and Ultima Online. I say its a mix of those two plus a lot of better stuff with way better graphics and more player accountability.

Also there are no levels and no grinding. Just go read the FAQ.

Oh and Darkfall has the biggest world ever created for an MMORPG game. The devs said it would take you more than 12 hours to cross the worldscape if there was nothing in the way. Thats huge.

edit -- And it has alternate planes of existence, HUNDREDS of dungeons/caves, plus an entire UNDERWORLD kinda like the Underdark that spans the entire world. And there are hundreds of islands that you can set up your secret headquarters on or just a hidden house ect.

First thing im gonna do when it releases is probably buy/build a house in the human capital city since capital cities will be the best guarded places. Even then i would have lock my house always and place magic traps on stuff against thieves. But would be best to put in a capital city of my race since i wouldnt have to hire as many guards because capital city is very, very highly guarded and protected against thieves and enemies.

I cant wait for beta!

Here is a map of Agon, the Darkfall Online world. Each major area is homeland to the races.

Mercia = Human homelands; allied to Elves and neutral to Dwarves; enemies of Orcs, Wolfmen, and Dark Elves

Nagast = Dark Elf (Alfar) homelands; enemy to everyone except Alfar

Mirendil = Elves (Mirdain) homeland; allied to Humans and neutral to Dwarves; enemies of Dark Elves, Wolfmen, and Orcs

Tribelands = Wolfmen homeland; allied to Orcs; enemies to Humans, Dwarves, and Elves, and Dark Elves

Dvergheim = Dwarf homeland; allied to Humans, neutral to Elves; enemy to Orcs, Wolfmen, and Alfar (Dark Elves)

Morak = Orcs homeland; allied to Wolfmen; enemy to Humans, Dwarves, and Elves, and Dark Elves

From what I read on the main page and from what you've written here it sounds like everything I wanted Shadowbane to be. I enjoyed that game, but was turned away eventually by the lack of things to do beyond defense of the city.

Thanks for the info.

Youre welcome!

Biggest differences between Darkfall and Shadowbane is that in SB when you lost your town it was so bad. It would take months to build a town that can be destroyed in a few hours. Most of the losers quit the game (SB) after losing months of work. Frankly, that wont ever happen in Darkfall due to major design differences.

In Darkfall, people cant destroy the entire town, they actually take it over instead. It is harder to take over a town, the defenders have more advantages.

Also, there isnt such a bad consequence, if you lose your town you can regroup and try to take it back.

And it takes DAYS to fight for a town, a war over a township will be spread out over perhaps a week (several days, at least), so you wont log into the game one morning and find you dont have a town and your house was ransacked. It takes several successful battles to secure a town from your enemy.

The combat in Darkfall is also quite different than Shadowbane. There is full character body collision, so zergs will not be effective against a town. A much smaller force, if more tactically skilled than the zerg, can overcome and kill the entire zerg. It wouldnt be easy, but its possible.

There will be no flying, so castle walls actually have meaning.

Theres so much more to the game, you would have to read dozens of interviews to get the entire features.



edit -- and the world size is huge; besides that, teleportation is done with expensive, rare rune-stones and takes 10 minutes to activate. Teleportation will be rare and wont be prevalent as in Shadowbane. Distances will actually have meaning. Different areas of the world will have different cultures because the world is so large. And also there will be 10,000 players concurrently logged into each server. Keep in mind that the world will be humungus.

I'm also interested in this game for some time now. Played DaoC and WoW for quite some time, but I really want a pvp mmorpg like Darkfall to come out. The only thing that concerns me is the development time. Aventurine is working on Darkfall Online for 5 years now? They moved from Norway to Greece, and lots of things changed during the process.

Now this is quite normal for a developer's first game, espescially if you take in account their tight budget and small team. But we all know the other mmorpg's that promised the world and failed to deliver (Mourning, Dark & Light, Roma Victor). I really want this game to succeed and not to end up as vaporware. This is the only title that I know off that promises open pvp, full loot, etc.

Glad to meet you. Its been in full-steam development for 3 years. Before that they were in Norway with 4 people working on it for 2 years, mostly doing backend work and designing. They started out with excellent server technology that they built the game around, not the other way around. The problem is that they put up the website far too early. They didnt hire a full team until 3 years ago. Not much changed from Norway to Greece except location and that they hired more developers. The original 4 developers (lead designers and programmer leads) are the same people. They moved to Greece because it has cheaper living situation. The company Aventurine absorbed the 4 developers (Razorwax). Nothing else changed regarding the project itself and its designs.

About funding: since the company Aventurine is a military contractor that has loads of money, the Darkfall project has terrific financial backing. They said they could self-publish the game internationally if they dont secure a publisher by the time it releases.

They are taking it slow through development to get things right. Theyve said that they want beta to be almost the full game, that means we have a little while more to wait before beta begins. Actually, since its only been 3 years in full-swing development, im surprised theyve gotten so much done. Im also cheered by the screenshots, they have improved a ton. Also, for nearly 3 years they didnt talk much at all, they have such intense schedules and dont have a "community manager" or anybody like that. A lot of people declared "vaporware" but ive always kept the faith based on what i know about the developers and their vision for Darkfall.

Think about it, Darkfall is the biggest and most innovative PvP game ive ever heard about. If they get in everything they plan on getting into it, this game will reign its niche space for many years. I believe they will get everything in that they can. I also know that theyre preparing for beta testing right now. Im pretty excited.

I dont know why you say "lots of things changed in the process" because hardly anything actually changed. The project is the same game with the same designs and vision, made by the same developers. Where-ever you got that information, was a false source and they should be corrected (or slapped).

I see your concern for the development time; but like ive said, it hasnt really been that long that its been in full development. I think it will be a full year from now that it will finally release, but im willing to wait as long as it takes.

Theyve said they will have a long, fun beta, and everyone that wants to try Darkfall will be able to try it during beta (sooner or later). So even if it doesnt release within a year, i am hopeful that we will be playing beta within that timeframe.

Keep in mind that World of Warcraft took 5 years of full development time.

Thanks for your reply!

I'm really looking forward to the beta, hopefully it will give me the same feeling as DaoC's open beta gave me all those year's ago.

Exploring a new world, where you constantly need to look out for possible dangers. Where you can't instantly trust other players, because they will be able to stab you in the back if you don't watch out, and loot all your stuff!

Mounted combat, where one needs to aim manually, instead of letting the statistics do all the work. Ambushing unaware players with your friends, or demanding toll for passage. I honestly can't wait to play it!

Same here. I really dig the game because its realistic. Like the real world, you cant trust everybody, and there will always be enemies. Enemy races (Wolfmen, Orcs, and Dark Elves since im gonna play a Human), clan enemies (clans can declare war on each other), player-killers that have negative alignment, and thats all besides the hordes of creatures in the game. Its also realistic in that when you kill something, it drops everything it has thats believable. You wont find a warhammer on a deer, you will find meat and skin. Goblin NPCs will drop whatever they were fighting you with. If the goblin has a small shield and a dagger, thats what drops into its corpse when you kill it. Same thing with players, the entire backpack drops when you kill a player.

Some people get scared away when i mention "full-loot." Seriously, in a game like World of Warcraft, full-loot would freakin suck. What they dont understand is that in Darkfall, items are far less important and far more easily available than most other games. Items will matter somewhat, but not enough to stress over losing uber gear. Because in Darkfall, there is no uber gear at all. There is better stuff, but its not uber.

Anyway, ya, im really looking forward to beta too. Ive been waiting 5 years.

First thing im gonna do when i enter beta:

/Ammon kneels and kisses the ground

Hehe, indeed. The first thing i'll do when logging on for the first time is attack the first person I see with the first weapon that's available to me! Just because I can!

Wow, that's alot of firsts.

No seriously, I'm gonna enjoy myself so much when this game goes live...I'll take 2 weeks off from work if I know a release / beta date.

I've been "passively" following DF since like '03. I'm not a fanboi, although I advocate it in different places. And I hope it won't be half finished disappointment like pretty much every other mmo from last few years.

Okey so I'm still waiting for DFO beta. However, it does seem to be a lot nearer according to Dev Journal #6 at Warcry.

The idea behind it sounds great, player reputation sounds like a good idea.

Maybe I'm taking your posts out of context, but it sounds like they're really going for "everything" with this one, hopefully they don't overdo it trying to do it all though.

Can't say I've always been a fan of pvp, but it ususally balances things out, so hopefully it'll work in Darkfall's favor, probably will with no classes.

Some of the people I see pvping kinda irk me, though your definetly a fresh and good surprise, but the people ( one guy in particular) who advocated this game REALLY hurt it's player reputation over on the AoC forums, but the way you put it, I might have to give this one a try, as long as there isn't some cheesey way to go and kill your fellow country/town folk with no repercussion from local law.

Thanks for the info.

I read all this and took a view on the site, it seems interesting. Does anyone know when Beta will be released?

@ThatGuy -- You should know that my personality style represents a bunch of PvPers that will play Darkfall. We like adventure with our PvP, not just endless ganking. Some of the people that PvP think they are all elite and stuff. I dont let them bother me, since I dont care for their opinions or ways. You gotta realize that they dont represent the entire Darkfall playerbase-to-be. There will be many more people like myself that play Darkfall for the entire experience and who have interests beyond griefing. Will Darkfall have griefers? Yeah, but most outlaws will also be hunted by people like myself and by everyone else. Reputation system is designed to thwart griefers and evil players. Darkfall is clan-based warfare, not griefer-based warfare. A lot of the people on Darkfall boards are MISTAKEN in that they expect themselves to own everyone else and grief everyone, while the real design of the game actually very much discourages those things. They are the people hailing from pre-Tramel Ultima Online when there was no consequences for ganking indescriminately. They seem to believe Darkfall will be the same; but they are mistaken. It seems those types of people havent studied the FAQ and game's design, because they arent taking into account the reputation system and the fact that the majority of PvPing will be done clan versus clan (guild warfare) over land ownership (which is what I am interested in doing). Put simply: I will kill any red player that I encounter because they are griefers and outlaws. I will also fight my enemies. But I am honorable enough not to gank in any griefing sort of way. The griefers in Darkfall, despite what the Darkfall forum seems to show, are going to a minority due to Darkfall's design. I've read everything about Darkfall since I first heard about it in 2001 or 2002, so I know what I'm talking about. My advise is not let ANYONE irk you in-game at all. My personal trick is to dis-associate myself and instead of getting angry or frustrated (like I used to do a lot), nowadays I look at getting ganked in PvP as a learning experience that helps me do better next time and hopefully become more aware of my in-game surroundings. I disassociate the event enough so that I do not let myself get all mad. If I get mad about it everytime I would quit. I dont wanna quit because these games are the best out there. It took myself some time to get myself to do it, but now when something bad happens, I actually let out a laugh instead of a curse-word. Even when some dipshit is being a jerk, I just let it go and dont think about it anymore. Because, basically, I dont give a crap what anybody else thinks or does.

There are a lot of IDIOTS that advocate Darkfall soley for its PvP aspects. They are so-called "hardcore PvPers" and say they are "griefers," ect... I ignore them, for the most part, because they dont represent the majority of potential Darkfall players. Most people that play Darkfall will be the same people that play other MMORPGs, so its a mixed bag. You will get jerks and you will get cool people. Its the same in all MMOs due to their being social games.

Also, there WILL be local law enforcement in Darkfall enforced by the players and NPC guards. You have to take into account all aspects of Darkfalls known design to understand its ramifications upon griefing players. I can tell you that clans will own lands and towns and will enforce it with hired NPC town guards, custom rulesets governing those guards and everyone in the town, as well as protecting their assets: resource assets like ore mines, lumberyards, and the town itself. NPC guards can be commanded to patrol areas outside of towns. You can hire as many NPCs as the clan can afford. You can even command NPCs to guard your house. There will be different laws in different areas according to whoever owns the area and also depending on factors like your race and your reputation (which is like alignment). Also keep in mind there are racial wars so not all areas will be friendly to your race. Like going into Orc areas is dangerous for Humans.

@titus -- There is no known date for beta. My best guess is October-November 2007.

ThatGuy said:

as long as there isn't some cheesey way to go and kill your fellow country/town folk with no repercussion from local law.

Click to expand...

No, theres a reputation system that marks you down a slot if you kill players of your own race. So like if a human kills a human unprovoked, he gets an alignment hit. But if you are attacked first and defend yourself, then you dont take alignment hit. The aggressor takes the alignment hit. Although anyone can attack anyone else.

If you kill enough people as the aggressor then you become "red" which means you are an outlaw and everyone that isnt outlaw can attack you freely and will take a positive alignment if they kill you. So people are rewarded when they kill griefers.

Which also means that griefers will be hunted continually and there will, thus, be far less griefers than what PvP-centric gameplay might seem to represent...

You can also put out a bounty on a person that everyone can read on the town's in-game posting forum. The first person to kill the target gets the amount of money you put into the bounty.

Town guard NPCs can be instructed to attack any specific player automatically, and will attack anyone marked as a threat: including clan-enemies and outlaws.

Aren't there elves and a few other fantasy races in this game? I hope they have some sorta racial alliance system in place, maybe even one that fluctuates from time to time, just to spice it up.

But hmm, I'm loving the guard and outlaw system, I'd definetly get on my knees and pay any monthly fee they put up if all the stuff you've mentioned get's put in, but man that's gonna be a pain to keep track of it all I bet.

Sign me up for the PKKers guilds

Yes, there are Elves called the Mirdain that is a playable race. Theres also dark elves called Alfar, playable race. And theres the wolf-dudes.

Racial alliances are (for all six player races):

Humans friendly to Elves (Mirdain); Dwarves are neutral to Humans & Elves.
Orcs hate Elves, Humans, and Dwarves. Wolf-Dudes hate Elves, Humans, Dwarves.
Wolf-Dudes and Orcs are friendly.
Dark Elves (Alfar) hate everybody except themselves. Dark Elves even hate Orcs.

So if you play a Human, you can walk into a Elven town or a Dwarven town freely without being attacked by guards (provided you have good reputation).

Also about keeping track of stuff. In the game there is a worldmap that is available to everybody. In the worldmap you can see all player towns and you can view there various laws of those towns in relation to you.

I'm gonna be either an Elf or a Human.

Everything will fluctuate because of guild warfare. Even humans will fight other humans if their guilds are at war.

I would probably go for a dwarf. I always like the little guys, so little but so dangerous.