This is what Darkfall should have been

I’m way late to this party but I really want to let you guys know that if you haven’t given Mount&Blade Warband a try then you need to.  It plays like Pirates Vikings and Knights (half life mod) mixed with Darkfall.  There are servers with up to 222 players and various game modes. I haven’t played the same map twice yet and all of them have a different look to them.  There are several factions each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses; Mongolian types get to shoot their bows while mounted or the Nordic types have better axes, etc.

My favorite  gameplay mode so far is Siege where one team defends and the other attacks.  This is where this game really shines.  Depending on the map, the defenders could actually have a castle and the opposing team has to infiltrate it.  It plays out exactly how I wish Darkfall would have with an actual feeling of organized sieging.  It’s like the old Dark Age of Camelot Keep sieges in a way.  The Archers will all be up on the walls shooting out and the guys with shields will be watching the walls to attack those who climb ladders.

Other maps include opportunities for you to form shield walls or mount up with lances and joust.  It’s really a great mix of gameplay in a realistic medieval setting.   In a way, it’s like the Medieval Battlefield game I wish DICE would make.  There are bows/xbows, swords, axes, lances, maces, darts, halberds, javelins, and just about every weapon you would want.  You can block certain directions, counter, swing different directions, and really engage enemies in combat.  There is a slight learning curve though.

I don’t want to always be that guy saying “I wish we had a MMO like this”, but it’s a real shame we don’t.  Regardless, it’s solid on its own merits and definitely worth the $15 on Steam.

Check out the video that my friend made for a solid look at what the game plays like.  It definitely runs smooth and looks good too.  I highly recommend it.

  • I see there’s a demo too. Is it offline play only or is there an online element to the demo too?

  • @Vort

    That demo is for the first Mount and Blade. I don’t there is currently a demo for the newest one, Warband.

    Warband is much more polished then the first one.

  • Kind of a trolling post title huh?

    Do you honestly think that this kind of combat would be possible in a large persistent world with 10k people on the same server?

    Darkfall is as close as you’re going to get to twitch gameplay in an MMO for the time being.

  • Seems like Darkfall could use instancing and get the same effect as Mount and Blade. Some of the more popular servers on Mount and Blade can hold 200 people and run smooth as silk. Darkfall probably hitches with half as many.

    Its like comparing apples and oranges, I know. I’m just saying…

    =/

  • I first played Mouunt & Blade a few years ago when it was a free game. Good to see it hit retail & even had an expansion.

  • @Tobias: Darkfall didn’t even capture the sieging feel though. DAOC did and they had traditional MMO combat. Darkfall was all about spazzing out in combat.

    Mount & Blade at least has a more calculated and tactical feel on top of capturing the feeling that you’re sieging a castle/fort.

    I believe it’s more than possible. Darkfall made a ton of design decision mistakes that kept it from being like Mount & Blade.

  • I didnt even realize until this last weekend that M&B Warband has a huge single player element. For $29.99 its a good deal. And yes I would definately get it over the original M&B as a lot of folks basically are calling it a very large patch instead of an expansion. So you get all the coolness of M&B, multiplayer, and most of the kinks worked out of the single player experience.

  • It’s $15, not $29 on Steam right now too. Played on a server tonight where it was a big jousting event. Totally awesome.

  • Yes, but Darkfall was not intended to be a medieval combat sim like M&B is. It’s its own world. I believe thats why they have hover tanks and battle spikes instead of battering rams. Darkfall was styled more after Quake

    Also, instancing would go against the entire appeal of Darkfall.

  • Yeah Mount and Blade is a solid game, but it skuld not work as an mmo as it stands.

    Can you maybe elaborate a bit on what parts of the game you would want to see in an mmo?

  • The reason I’m asking is that m&b has tons of features that you would REAM other moms for having, casting them off as non-moms. (instancing, no crafting, being too much of an JRPG,etc)

  • Saying Darkfall was styled after quake is plain stupid. The deathmatching is slow paced and unresponsive compared to a game like quake. Darkfall isn’t a bad game, but I frankly don’t get all the “Its more like a shooter than an RPG” stuff I hear about it. I’ve played it and it felt, at best, like Oblivion/Morrowind and most times clunkier. Like I said, its a good game, but the scope of the game is the draw far more than the combat mechanics as far as I am concerned.

  • @Pierre

    With “moms” in there instead of “mmo” that probably the funniest sentence of the day.

  • M&B is great and all, but it has one flaw that irks me: There is only one way you can do things on each given map. You can’t decide what siege engines to use or where to deploy them.

    In other wards, there is no strategy, just micro-tactics.

  • I didn’t say it was MORE like a shooter, I was simply saying that the world and gameplay is styled more around an over the top shooting game than a medieval simulator like M&B is. The devs themselves said many dungeons were designed to be like Quake levels, and the magic system gives you a LOT of toys to jump around the world and do crazy things with.

  • DAMN, i was ready to buy it for $15.. but it’s up to $30.. i dont think i want to spend that much with sc2 just coming out

  • hmmm can’t get my mouse cursor to respond in game; I am running 64-bit Windows 7 if that matters…

  • The little spear cursor doesn’t move on the screen, while the real cursor is invisible, which is a bear to use to select things since you don’t know where it is until you randomly mouse over something that highlights…

  • Thanks gankatron, when I try to buy the game on amazon it says :

    An error occurred when we tried to process your request. Rest assured, we’re working to resolve the problem as soon as possible. If you were trying to make a purchase, please check Your Account to confirm that the order was placed. We apologize for the inconvenience.

    any ideaS?

  • Not for that one. Did you navigate away from the purchase page at any time? It took a while for my purchase to go through with the screen refreshing multiple times for over a minute until it went through. Perhaps yours timed out?

    BTW I found out why the cursor wasn’t moving; it is a problem if you have your destop icons set to larger than normal under personalize…

  • Hehe, the perfectionist that I tend to be means that I have not progressed past the first single player fight, which I keep getting knocked out at. I have only played it for 20 minutes so far though. I think tutorial is in order!

    I imagine I will like it, afterall what is not to like about people chaotically running around slaughtering each other?

    I will need some training, but after we should get a group together and let our enemies suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. My last toon looked a hell of a lot like Dave Chappell, which immediately increases the enjoyment factor quite a bit!

  • Do you choose attributes and weapons for the multiplayer or does everyone play the same basic skill model?

  • Actually I think it would be fun to try to get a group of HFG locals and practice on each other in a password protected game. I try to remember to post an invitation on the forums if someone else doesn’t beat me to it.

  • I’d be down for that. Heck, having our own server could be pretty cool. I have no clue how that’d work though.

  • Sad DF went they way they did. The game did have extremely good server arch. I get a better ping across the pacific to their servers then i get with most shooters. You can really tell DF was a game made by good techs but ammature game designers.

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