Could it really be... Darkfall? - Keen and Graev's Video Game Blog

actually its what wow should had been :sandbox world,open ffa pvp,player cities,body looting,i dont care about graphics this is like UO I LIKE .

ill try it been following it for a while.

Too little, too late.

Gameplay looks stiff and clunky, why bother with this with WAR literally right around the corner? It has no chance of getting me, and this trailer didn’t help its cause.

I’ve only heard of this game in passing and I watched all of the clips that were provided. The Scenary and the “sandbox” world/adventure, crafting any item, building ships and cities, no name plates overhead, and the skill based advancement all seem really cool. The only problem that I see with this is the Open ffa pvp and personal looting. It just seems like it is being built for griefers. The more “skilled” powerful players will always be killing the underpowered “lowbies”. I don’t know about you guys but I don’t want to play thru hours of dungeon crawling and discover an awesome weapon just to have someone kill me and loot it off me as I leave the dungeon. Nor do I want to be a merchant and set up shop just to have anyone come in and kill me and take my goods because everyone figures out that its easier and cheaper than buying them lol. Its great that I can do all these cool things in the world but if open ffa pvp/looting negates the point of all the other stuff it just won’t be fun. I’ll probably give it a shot though.

To play Devil’s Advocate, perhaps aside from satisfying the sandbox fanboys (honestly, are they *ever* satisfied?), maybe *just maybe* Darkfall can provide true “massive pvp” which isn’t going to happen with current tech and networking in “pretty” games like AoC and to a lesser degree WAR.

ps. war plays great, feels great, and is fun..My money, literally, is on WAR…Waaaaggghh..

Adventurine’s talked such a line on this for so long I won’t believe it until it is on the shelf at Fry’s.

Still, I’ll be interested to see what makes it into any release. They promised so many features, they make Brad McQuaid seem conservative.

Too little, too late? Why, because you expected it in 2004-2005? Seriously, I am so glad I stopped visiting Virgin Worlds and his lackeys.

You guys are fucking lame.

Also, you guys are increasingly getting OUT OF TOUCH, especially Brent with his love for microtransactions and SOE. Thank gawd the silent majority doesnt pay attention to you, Brent.

Not sure that anyone here was disrespectful in the voicing of their opinion, Ammon777. Obviously your opinion differs from theirs; as does your class.

A few of my friends have expressed interest in this game. I’ll have to wait and see how it shapes up. Cool concept imo.

The only way this might survive if its a free to play model. Or you can play it on a cell phone. lol

LOL, who has class? Sorry but Darkfall hopefuls like me have been bombarded by vaportrolls for the past 5 years, not to mention constant discrimination by the staff at mmorpg.com who let vaportrolls run rampant but then ban Darkfall fans for going on defensive against them — and its not just me, its every Darkfall fan. And when our hopes are finally justified (today), extremely pisses me off to read retarded shit like on this site. If the writers on this site wouldve downloaded the actual 800mb video they wouldve seem the graphics are just as good as Warhammer, just in a different style. They should take back their comments about it looking like EQ/AC; they were basing that on a super low quality youtube video and not seeing the actual video? Damn, I wont be coming here again, bunch of dumbfucks.

Vort, you are so out-of-touch with the MMO crowd, you shouldnt even be talking.

Bloggers suck, gamers rule.

But then, I shouldnt expect any better from WAR fanboys. I am talking to the wrong people at the wrong place.

kthxbye!

I have no problem being harsh with the video if they are going to put in things like “100% In-game Footage”. I mean they’re just going to get mocked plain and simple for using that, unless the visuals are that impressive that you would have thought they were CGI rendered. Yet the visuals (i.e. buildings, character animations, effects) they showed are clearly outdated compared to other current games today (other than maybe the models which looked not bad).

I mean if this video is their selling point, not sure how many people will be enticed by it. Maybe show some innovative gameplay features instead that differentiate the game from others, rather than just showing generic combat.

One more thing before I’m gone!

Darkfall is going to be one of the biggest subscription-based MMORPGs over the next decade. It will rival and surpass EVE. Mark my words, you heard it from me first. The guy that doesnt have any “class” that probably got all his posts deleted by the ultratards the run this joint.

@Ammon777

“Darkfall is going to be one of the biggest subscription-based MMORPGs over the next decade. It will rival and surpass EVE. Mark my words, you heard it from me first. The guy that doesnt have any â€œclassâ€ that probably got all his posts deleted by the ultratards the run this joint.”

Is this some sort of a sick joke? Did you see that trailer? It looks like it was made in 2001, this “in-game footage” is pure garbage and it certainly wont be the biggest subscription-based MMO. With little money, a terrible development cycle and vacant marketing, fanboy masturbation like yours isn’t going to accomplish anything. Are you seriously trying to suppose that this game can hold a candle to something like WAR or even future MMO’s on the horizon?

Your lack of knowledge about the current state and trends in the MMO industry are laughable at best. Try playing some games one day. Maybe talk to other people who have different taste? You know…do the whole constructive discussion thing? You may learn something.

Um, I don’t get it. I just check out their website and found these visuals. They don’t look like anything in the video and look far better quality, so what’s up?

I mean look at this video from last year. It’s a year old and looks better than the lastest video above from YouTube. Even the character animations in the older video appear to be better. How can character animations get worse over the development cycle (or appear to anyways)?

As interesting as Darkfall looks like it could be with all it’s potential systems (gameplay > graphics after all)… the nagging feeling that 75% of the playerbase will be like this Ammon fella has me willing to safely wait until well after release to see if the developers pulled it off and is worth checking out.

I was interested in Darkfall… back in 2003 =p

In a way its a little sad, because to me it shows the scope required for MMORPGs to be competitive today is just far beyond what a small shop can produce. I like to root for the little guys, but think they have no chance.. amazing they managed to secure funding to make the game for 7+ years though

It doesnt look NEARLY as bad as Everquest. Not even near..

Because Everquest is a 15 year old game maybe?

@Andrew: Read the blog post before commenting..

Man those graphics look like ass, but the nagain id expect that from a 5 year old game thats just getting to beta stage.

Im not a rabid WAR or WoW fanboy, but you have got to be dilusional if you think those “slow” choppy character animations are gonna cut it in this day and age. Darkfall would do well to make it a free to play model and charge advertising fees or something because that game looks bad.

Not to mention that hard core MMO style fell out of favor back in UO days, theres a reason why no full grief friendly character looting MMo has been made since then, its cause it sucks.

Fix the character animations, the combat clunkiness (and people said WAR’s was clunky) take out the full on character loot and you might get a decent customer base.

Then again if AoC can remain in business then I see why this shouldnt so what do I know 🙂

I am aware of trends in the PvP sector of MMOs, and pretty much every PvP sandbox fan in the West is looking forward to Darkfall right now. Just you calling it “pure garbage” demonstrates your complete ignorance of what kind of design makes for a great game. You probably judged it by terrible resolution YouTube videos, while I downloaded the real thing. But if all you care about are graphics and not gameplay, I question your ability to spot trends, and to totally ignore the trends of PvP gamers. Open PvP sandbox freedom *is* the new trend. I guess you havent heard about EVE yet. Last of all, fuck you, stupid bloggers. The only people that pay attention to your constant ramblings are other bloggers, nobody else gives a fuck about you and your opinions.

Except you who posted an angry message to their blogs in e-rage.

There are a few gamers who have a tendancy to read blogs, but then as a whole, in the gaming scene you’re right, bloggers only ever read other blogs as a general rule. But that’s not exactly a bad thing. We create discussion and debate, vocal opinions and all that. It’s all very well saying “Thank gawd the silent majority doesnt pay attention to you” but then, do we need them to? We’re interested in talking about what we like and what we don’t like. We chat about things that float our boat and then, prehaps with savageness, although often with personal support of why, rip into the things we don’t like. That isn’t a bad thing by any means. Afterall, what we’re doing is the equivilent to saying something down the pub, in a chat environment or on the forums. Instead we just do it in our personal space so people can come along and evaulate what they think/feel in comparison to others, whilst weighing up points.

If you’re truely that annoyed by it (the general blogger scene), I question what you’re doing with hanging around places like this? Or is it because the Darkfall tag is hanging in the air you feel ‘compelled’ to come spew, because otherwise people are just going to vindicate your game.

For me, I was excited by Darkfall when the first video of it came out way back. I’ve not really thought about it since and had no need to. Looking at it now, it doesn’t look particually special to me. Awkward character model positioning and sloppy combat ~ but then we have to remember WAR didn’t look exactly pretty when it was first in BETA.

If this game takes until 2010 (minimum) to come out, which there is every possibility if they’re attempting to bring out a game that will competitive within the MMORPG market, then they’ll simply find it’s too late. Why 2010 you ask? Because you’re going to need -at least- a year long beta to test every aspect of what they want to include.

Why too late? may be your other question. And that is because you’re likely to see the market become more and more saturated. SoE is pumping out more MMORPGs, Blizz and Bioware have 2 new upcoming MMORPGs, expansions for games and NCSoft’s new game/s. Darkfall’s going to compete with that, by giving us a game that was originally announced to be next generation, 8 years ago from that? Doesn’t cut it for me. They have to pull something truely ridiculous out of the game, which by the way, unless home computer technology has increased enough by then to support such aims (a reason why WAR had to ‘tone down’ it’s graphics for an average PC) it’s going to have to remain looking ‘medival’ which to alot of gamers is a put off.

Darkfall will be hitting a niche market. A niche market that could of moved on by then, or be stuck into whatever else is currently around (new EVE expansion?)

It will come out this year or early next year. Something that is getting glossed over was the announcement by Aventurine’s publisher the day prior to the video release that beta will occur in October. The devs have said earlier this summer they don’t want a long beta period because of the process they went through vetting the game with professional QA.

2008? Now that’s comedy.

A professional QnA? >_>

There’s alot of things they’ll be missing then in my view. Getting joe blogs to attack your game, inside the game, to see what he can break, be it intentional or not, is going to show more flaws, problems and so forth, surely? That’s pretty confident for Aventurine.

If it comes out this year, it’s going to get smashed into the floor. If it comes out next year, it may have some stiff competition, we will have to see, but one of the main problems in my view, will be the fact if something is unbalanced to the point of silly and thus it’s deemed as the ‘only way’ forward or a definate avoidance (it’s amusing how sandbox fans like to say they’re open to wanting/exploring everything yet as soon as they find something that’s the positive/plus of the world that gives them the best advantage they stick to it) then it’s going to ‘lock away’ that part of the game, or possibly ‘lock away’ other parts of the game because no one will be wanting to delve into it.

i will believe it when i see it, i got a guild beta invite for it 2 years ago, they said it was starting in a couple of weeks, it never did.

Bartlebe@ Bud I always enjoy reading what you have to say but why would you even try and talk to Ammon777? I have only two words for that loser – Nerd Rage. Let the poor little guy sit in hes moms basement waiting for darkfall why the rest of us are having fun playing WAR.
On a side note I cant stop laughing at the video when it says “100% Pure ingame footage” like someones sitting back going wow look at that! Maybe I would have back in 1999

gezz looks like ammon needs to chill an relize these are game an not omg real life…ya well game looks meh…WAR better who ever said it would rival eve that is sooo wrong eve has some of the most massiv pvp ever made personal eve is an will be the best pvp game IMO it means something if u loose ur ship is gone an skill is everything if u dont know how to play u need not log into eve

@William

I realized that after I had posted. I totally took the troll bate and trolled him back. I should have bit my tongue and taken the higher ground but I was to upset. Oh well…i’ll resist the urge next time and try not to lose some face. 😀

What a rational and well thought out discussion of a game, Ammon777. Never have I seen such a magical formation of words. You have sold me on the wonders of Darkfall and I am, starting now, devoting the next 16 years of my life to playing it. I will have to begin meditations immediately though since the sheer wonder of the game will undoubtedly cleave my naive mind in two if I am not ready. It’s a shame though. Oh the wasted years….
I had these pitiful ideas before about how a game should be made but your articulate and prodigious statements awoke a demon inside me. I had this irrational thinking that games which included the word “sandbox” in their selling points were a waste of my time. These eyes can now see the truth. You have done a deed here today. One that even you cannot comprehend.

PS Darkfall suckorz lolololoolol64l566578

PPS Who’s this Brent he keeps referring to?

pfft u take it to em bart cant have kids comin here thinkin there king shit need to take em downa peg or two an who better than u do that

Ha ha ha ha ha, o wow…
What an entertaining post.
I can’t believe that are really people like that out there. “p

Nothing like a little entertainment in the morning when eating your Cheerios! 😀 I never thought I would see the day that Darkfall actually has militant trolls defending it. The game surprises me at every turn!

Keen, you attract all the best personalities “p

on a side note… what are the advantages of stealing turds anyway ? I mean, why do it… whats the point ?

At least the arrow animations look a lot better than WAR. I hear you about the dated graphics though…

I’ve seen Ammon posting before. He has taken it as his personal mission to defend Darkfall on the internet. I think he even had a badge made that he wears when he patrols the internet, thwarting those who speak ill of his dream.

@Ammon – You and Adventurine are a matched pair. All talk, no substance. Have you heard the phrase “put up or shut up” before?

As for “Who listens to bloggers?” I’m going to guess… YOU!

@Jaspr
That’s a good question. However, I am sure there must be some advantage to stealing turds. Turd Burglers probably make a good income in the fertilizer market – among other products. They can cut their expenses buy stealing the turd as opposed to paying market value for it.

Darkfall videos / My Ass

No difference!

Amazing!

(Swears the kool aid is getting more potent for some people)

i plan to buy WAR but,come on,darkfall has clunky animations?…the pot calling the (oops forgot the other thing)black?

WAR’s animations are not yet complete. According to Mark Jacobs they will be patching them before launch. And even in their incomplete state they’re better than the, albeit likely also incomplete, Darkfall ones in the video. You really have to admit that the animations, textures, etc are all circa 2001.

Looks like a fun game. The real-time, action-oriented combat is what really gets me with this. The graphics don’t bother me so much if the combat plays better than most MMOs.

It reminds me a little of Rune, which I still play to this day.

“The real-time, action-oriented combat is what really gets me with this.”

Where have we heard this before? I’m looking at you, Age of Conan.

On a PvP standpoint, the game is a great idea for hardcore pvp’rs. I did not think the graphics were game-breaking at all, but the character animations *stick finger down throat* I cannot play a game that the characters move sooo sluggish, and unrealistic. Loved the knockback effects, and static arrows on targets.

and Ammon, you do realize you said like 5 posts ago, that was the last time you were coming here…(you came 5 more times)

@Bwast

Well, Age of Conan’s flaws certainly weren’t within its combat system. Sure, the PvP system wasn’t developed and the game lacked in most other areas, but to suggest its combat system was crap would be inaccurate.

Nevertheless, Dark Fall appears to skip the whole “target -> press hotkey -> attack” approach in favor of something more like Jedi Outcast or any other real-time action game.

Personally, I believe those are the kinds of steps the genre needs to make to really break out of its rut.

@Bartlebe

Buddy you did not lose face 🙂 just saying not used to you taking troll bait thats all.
Now I was reading Ammon777 posts again for fun…They are fun to read and I was getting the really bad vib that he was typing with one hand and cutting himself with the other hand in which return made his Mascara run. I dont know is it just me? Sad to think some one gets that worked up over a video game.

@Bwast
AoC’s only saving grace was the realtime combat. It is what keeps the people who are still dedicated drinking at that trough. That and the “Tortage Experience” of course.
Funcom is the reason it sucks, and not the game itself.
If only DDO was more of an open world, with it’s semi real time combat. It would be a really good game. But, it’s overall control and UI takes away from that. And the incessant dungeon crawl (yes, what the game is about, I know)really kills any fun.
I think it is time for Turbine to do AC3, and use DDO style combat and make it a truly open world.
Darkfall just looks like a big lose here.

As much as I want to back more sandbox titles until I see a retail product I’m seeing this as DnL – trying to hype up a completly outdated engine as ‘the next best thing’ the only hope that this has a much much more stable engine then DnL…

Darkfall although ‘epic’ on paper will be outdated by design on release seeing as there is a lot more Sandbox titles on their way much more in line with the current market..

So yes: ‘little too late’ is quite appt for this

@ Alex and Openedge1
Yes I agree that the combat system for Age of Conan was by far the best feature in the game. I was just merely stating that this sounds ever so familiar. Companies hammer in new and fresh ideas to lure people over to their game since they’ve been playing WoW for years. Players are in such an uproar over this new feature, they go ahead and get pumped about a game without even knowing the whole of it. At least that was my reaction with Conan.

@ Openedge1 I don’t really understand how a game cannot suck while the company that made the game can. I would think that if the company itself was awful, shouldn’t that reflect directly onto the product? If a game is broken, it is bad. I don’t know how else to put it. I don’t care what 2 more months of production would have done for the game. It was released broken and that’s why it bombed.

The only positive thing that came out of Age of Conan is the possibility of more future MMOs using the same or similar combat system.

@Bwast
I feel the reason AoC is a good game and Funcom is the issue deals with their decisions.
The game itself is GOOD, but to an extent.
The company continued to flounder on what made the game good, and with their decisions making the game worse as time progressed from launch, and introducing so many bugs that the game was not playable….this is where the rub lies.
PvP was the focus, yet PvP was so broken. So, why continue to push that focus? Why not go PvE?
Bad Decisions.
Combat was great at launch, yet turned into a 1 shot fest after Funcom meddled in balance.
Bad Decisions.
Talk about AoC like it was the second coming during interviews?
Bad Decision

All Funcom issues.

If the game turned around and became the game that was in Open Beta, and add in the original PvP system, kill some levels (make it 40 or 50 levels).
The game would rock.
But, it all boils down to Bad Decisions on Funcoms part that makes AoC the mess it is today.

Under the crap that is Funcom, if you use toilet paper, you might see the original vision…hidden away.

Too sad really.

AoC IS a good game. Funcom is a company destroying it.

If you don’t feel like downloading a 600mb video or watching it in 6 parts, I do have the video in it’s entirety hosted on my site:

http://gamezig.com/gaming-news/darkfall-beta-opens-gameplay-trailer-released

Funcom did make Dreamfall so they aren’t too bad. As for Darkfall vs AoC atleast darkfall isn’t pushing for high end graphics that contributes to crippling lag.

Secondly Nintendo and Xbox Live arcade among other examples show that graphics aren’t neccessary as long as the game is cheap or innovative. Darkfall won’t be cheap by Live arcade standards but by MMO standards it is innovative since very few attempt to make a non-diku game. Only time will tell if that innovation is acceptable to a large number of consumers. Personally I think as long it is stable enough to provide large scale battles without lag like Planetside it will outperform Eve Online in terms of subscribers.

Firstly, i see where you all are coming from. The graphics are outdated (in parts!) and cannot compete with todays standards. But take AoC. a bloody wonderful game, with no content, and therefore fails hard.

However, Aventurine, i hope/believe have build themselves a complete, and working game.

What they are basically saying is, graphics dont matter,as much as gameplay. This game is gonna have guild vs guild battles, that work. So we gotta tone the graphics down a bit, to give you the best gameplay.

and, as every DF fanboy has chanted from the top of their lungs – eg, me – gameplay first, pretties later.

bloody wonderful looking game**

sorry, gave the wrong impression there.

Graphics are not the worlds greatest, but claiming they are a little bit above EQ and AC is just flat wrong. If you feel the need to blast your opinion to the world via a blog please at least be correct in such as simple observation as this.

@Openedge1
I wouldn’t be aware of the decisions that Funcom made since I left the game about 2 weeks into the experience because I could see that the game just wasn’t for me. When I buy a game, I expect a certain amount of substance. If it’s not there, I stop wasting my time and unsubscribe. Such is my experience with Age of Conan.
Quests were very linear and would’ve been easy to complete even without the tracking system similar to WAR’s. The lore was uninteresting to me and failed to immerse me in the game (don’t even get me started on the instancing). The environments were a step in the right direction in some places, but in others it was like a barren wasteland with little to no flora or fauna in sight. There were very few items that changed the look of your character from one person to the next, which made the whole in-depth character creation screen, with all it’s options, a little redundant in my opinion.
There may have been something there that might have been slightly more enjoyable if it was made by a more reputable company, but I surely didn’t see it. I saw an MMO by the numbers kind of deal that put most of the emphasis on the combat system, which, at the end of the day, was just as repetitive as auto attacking.