Searching for Clanstones on our Massive Warship of Dooooom!

Last night’s excursion into the unknown waters and lands of Darkfall was fun!  The goal of the event was to search for an unclaimed Clanstone to found a city or hamlet.   We took our Massive Warship of Doooooom raft out for the first time on the Northern shore of Agon hoping to find something near Yssam or the Dwarven area.  It was a long shot, but we were willing to try.   We sailed to the east down the shore and came across the Society of the Anvil’s clan city area and they didn’t take too kindly to that… they began bombarding us with arrows and spells.  All of us packed onto the raft made for quite an enticing target for AoE spells.  We soon found ourselves under attacking by an army of players chasing us through the water and our only recourse was to flee.  Well, due to “client side shift” (which you will see a lot of in the video) we had two men fall overboard.  We took up a strafing pattern and tried to give them time to catch up but this resulted in the enemy boarding our raft and engaging us in melee combat.  We knocked them off the raft and fought with all we had – the adrenaline rush was huge.  We ended up rescuing one  of our members from the ocean’s waters but the other was quickly overtaken and sent to the bottom (may he rest in peace).

This sort of thing happened again as we sailed off the Ork coast and had another clan bombard us.  We had multiple members fall off but they made it to land and mounted up.  One by one we were slowly fading away until it was just me on the raft sailing to Cairn.  It was a blast though!  We were laughing, screaming like girls (no, Vryn wasn’t present but I think I heard a gitty scream from Teleth when he launched the raft), and planning ways to boast our deeds as though we were the ones laying siege to the enemy in our massive warship instead of sailing off as fast as we could on a makeshift raft *ahem*.  Good times. 😉

Now for a small complaint because I need to express a bit of angst.  Spent 6 hours exploring yesterday on top of about 4-5 hours I’ve spent (and 10+ some others in the clan have spent) the past week looking for an unclaimed Clanstone city/hamlet.   After exploring (by raft) the islands and (by mount) the lands of Niffleheim, Yssam, Cairn, and Agon – all but Rubaiyat – we have discovered the unfortunate realization that probably every clanstone is taken.  This means that for the time being we are without a clan city.  We have the clanstone (10,000g), thousands more gold, Building Modules, almost unlimited resources for our needs, and 37 + members ready to lay siege at a moment’s notice.

The problem?

According to rumor (unverified by me, but widely acknowledged) these clanstones can’t take damage.  Why is that a problem?  Because you can’t take a city without the clanstone being destroyed.  In fact, they’re so important that only certain siege weapons are capable of attacking them: Siege hammers, Warhulks, explosives, etc.  We plan to verify this rumor tonight as we declare war on a clan that has not even started developing their city to try it out.

That leads me to my next rant.

Clans are taking these stones and doing -nothing- with them.  Then other Clans are taking multiple stones.  Both of these things are fine if sieging works, but it’s bothersome when sieging doesn’t work (assuming it doesn’t) and we’re stuck with nothing.

Since I try to never rant without providing feedback or solutions:

1.  Fix the sieging!  We’re ready to lay waste to dozens of clans.
2. Take the hours and hours of undeveloped land and ADD MORE CLANSTONES! The game centers around it. The world has so much unused space. Take your little doodad tool and plop a few more down please.

Other than this unfortunate set back, we’re having a fantastic time playing Darkfall.  Haven is up to 37 members in-game with another ten or so applicants coming down the pipe.  We’re organized and having hunts every day and events every night.  Last night’s event was the search for a clanstone where we all packed ourselves into a raft and sailed the ocean.  Past nights we’ve taken excursions behind enemy lines and some nights we just farm mobs for cash.  We’ve carved out quite the community for ourselves and continue to grow every day.  If you need a shelter (or Haven.. ehh ehh) from the storm in Darkfall, you know where to find us.

Watch in HD

  • I’m guessing the Warhulks will be able to take down the clan stones. Has anyone actually built one yet?

    The only reports I’ve seen is that the Siege Hammers aren’t working properly with clan stones, but I haven’t seen anything about Warhulks not being able to take them out.

  • Yeah I’m pretty sure it’s Construction. I didn’t play beta so I’m not sure what else is required though.

    It’s unfortunate that newer or smaller guilds aren’t able to secure a city/hamlet only 2 weeks after release. I think though once the focus of the guilds that have cities shift from farming to actual war, it might be a lot easier for you guys. (providing they fix Siege Hammers) From what I’ve seen newer guilds have to work on building a relationship with an established guild that has a city in order to have a safe place to squat until sieging is more prevalant, or fixed.

  • Haha, loving the video. Sad I couldn’t make it. Didn’t realize someone actually made it onto the boat. It was hard to figure out what was going on from the frantic ventrilo chaos!

    PS Let the sieging begin…

  • Ahahahaha…great music choice!

    My first couple nights of the game seems to be showing me that this game is not really set up for solo play. Do you all find this to be the case?

    I wanted to play for a bit to learn the game before going the clan path, but I’m finding this a bit harder then expected.

    Is there some progression areas. Meaning at a certain point is it just time to leave Monkville (sp?) Or is the difficulty spread out evenly all over the land?

    Thanks,
    Doody

  • I’ve said all along that this game is not a solo game by any stretch of the imagination. You can do some stuff and be one of those small ganker types but you will never amount to much at all.

    Going off the beaten path solo is like asking to be ganked now. Monkfield and other starter areas are centered around their capital cities. Mobs in this general area are easier but mobs get exponentially harder the further out you go. The ability to solo mobs pretty much stop 10 minutes out from starter areas.

  • Roger that Dodger. I knew a lot of folks have stated it wasn’t a solo game…I just didn’t think it would be so soon, ahahaha

    Thanks for the reply.

  • It was a blast listening to that expedition on vent last night, sorry I wasn’t able to get my issues straightened out to join in – hopefully tonight will be better.

    That sucks about the clan stones. There must be on out there somewhere.

  • From what I understand, the battle hammers are currently broken and I have seen screen shots of a GM responding in game that it will be fixed soon.

    The battle spikes however should work. How effective are they? Not very it appears. I guess there was an attempt made with 500 to 600 battlespikes used and it resulted in the clanstone being dropped to ~85%.

    If a clan has claimed more then one stone then I believe that has to be a bug or problem as that is stipulated in the manual as a pre-condition to claiming one in the first place (that one isn’t already claimed). The same goes for sieging, you can’t siege if you already have a stone.

    if anyone has better info then me by all means I’m not expert, this is just what I’ve read.

  • Yeah I saw that post Syncaine. My clan is ready for everything. We have lots of materials, modules, lots of money, 39+ members now, and just no spots left.

  • Solo play in Darkfall is only for the extremely hardcore player. It is however the best “group” MMO I have ever played. I am already forming strong bonds with my guildies in this game, due to the fact that we have to rely on one another for survival.

  • @Quaskarr

    There was a post with a SS of a GM convo about hammers. It’s not that hammers are broken according to this SS but that they aren’t meant to damage the clanstone itself. Supposedly they are defensive weapons as are battle spikes to damage cannons and warhulks. And cannons and warhulks are used to destroy clanstones.

    If this is actually true or not I have no idea but it seems to contradict the earlier comment about another GM saying that they were broken. If that’s the case then maybe the GMs have no idea at all. Which wouldn’t surprise me.

  • Hi Keen,

    I can confirm Clanstones CAN be damaged, as ours was attacked last night.

    Siege Hammers are defensive against War Hulks, but Battle Spikes can be used to damage stones. It wasn’t in the realm of 600 either. Guy we killed last night that was attacking had 48 left in his bag, and the stone was @ 80%. Of the 100 or so attackers he appeared to be the only one throwing the battlespikes, and we shut him down pretty quickly.

  • I still havnt managed to pick up a copy of the game, been saving my application for when I do. Dang, I wasnt expecting their “release a little at a time” strategy.

  • i need to hook up with you guys… every time I’ve been on guild chat has been totally empty (i live in japan, bad timezone). I’ve apparently flagged myself as a PK too, and am stuck in a rut until I can kill someone on the opposing faction, but that’s hard to do with just a starter weapon and no armor. (full article on that at ixobelle.com)

  • We usually have members on 24/7 because of our European and Australian players. Japan is GMT +9 and California is GMT -8. This means that you are a day ahead, 8 hours behind.

    So right now it’s 6pm for me (primetime) and 10am for you (morning). What are your usual play times?