Darkfall Hands-On Preview: The Rise of the Ninja (Looter)
Can Darkfall rise above the rest without holding the player's hand?
There's nothing quite like a fresh hands-on preview to get the blood pumping, especially when those hands are clasping the enigmatic goodness that is Darkfall. Dalmarus recently had a chance to dive into the game and put it through the paces... or did he get put through the paces? The game and community aren't without fault, but Darkfall provided him a welcoming breath of fresh air with its in-your-face combat. Read on to find out why Dalmarus can't wait to dish out some payback when the game goes live!
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I can sum up my favorite thing about Darkfall in one brief sentence. You and your target move during combat. Until I started playing Darkfall, I really never gave the idea much thought, but looking back now, the mobs in virtually every other game I play are generally static, at least until they get below 20% health and begin to run away. If that's what you expect out of Darkfall's combat, you couldn't be more wrong... and I bet you'll love the fact.
I've enjoyed playing darkfall just because it is so different then the modern MMOs.
I think if you focus on the negatives when you're playing, and if you (god forbid) read the forums, you won't have much fun.
There are, however, those epic moments, and oh-shit moments when something incredibly awesome happens you'd never see in WoW, that makes it all worth it.
If you enjoyed Oblivion, and likes the consept of Runescape(that you can chop wood, kill people and loot them) Your going to love this game. Its great fun, and its a community game, basically those who love wow, go away :P
Once upon a time in a land called Meridian, no consequence pvp was practiced. But in those days the PK hunters far outnumbered the PKers. Later, the same was true in Ultima Online. Also later, the concept of no consequences was tossed out due to players demanding some type of game driven retribution. And this was in games where most people played good guys.
Fast forward to more recent times, and it seems that everyone wants to be the bad guy. It worked out that way on the AoC pvp servers and, shocker!, the players who had begged for unrestricted PvP suddenly begged for game driven consequences.
I had wanted to play Darkfall to see if the old time player dynamics would reemerge, but your preview makes it painfully obvious that they haven't.
Sad. Whether I was going to play as PKer or a PK hunter, without the majority of people being "good guy" vigilantes who hunt and kill the, small minority of, evil PKers, the system will fail. Gaming history proves this.
Oh well. Maybe some other game company, with a better understanding of what people actually want, will do a 100% skill based game. That would have been fun.
The human side of the game seems to have a more friendly/helpful "vibe" than the Alfar. By a long shot actually. When the game goes live, I think I'll skip my normal routine and actually play a human for a change because of this when it goes live.
The idea of Darkfall appeals to me, but I'm going to hold onto my money for a little while longer, based on a number of reasons:
The NDA was up until just a few days ago. Personally, I think having the NDA up so close to launch indicates there may be issues with the game actually be ready for launch.
There's no open beta of the game in it's actual release state and, despite what Tasos stated in his mmorpg.com interview, there hasn't been enough time--at least for me--"to get enough feedback to make an informed decision". The beta reviews, since the NDA was lifted, still refer to a game with features turned off, capped graphic settings, being in debug mode, etc..., there's no way to get a really good idea of what the game is really going to be like at launch.
There are reports that the game calculations and processing are heavy on the client, which has lead to a number of hacks already available and others in development.
The game was supposed to launch today, but has been plagued with a number of problems, beginning with the Pre-Order process, which started a few days ago. Simply put, as of right now (11:15PM Greece), the game hasn't launched. Many games, both large and small, do suffer from launch troubles, so this isn't entirely unexpected, but it is a good reason to take a "wait and see" approach, especially since Aventurine has been horrible about providing updates on what's going on today. Their main website doesn't have any news flashes on it and still has a beta signup button! Webmasta, please!
So, barring any sort of free trial, I'll be waiting on some objective reviews from reliable sources, based on actual non-beta game experiences, before I decide to pony up the quon.
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~Ripper McGee
Last edited by RipperMcGee; 02-25-2009 at 04:21 PM.
Thanks for the preview. I was thinking the whole way through your write up that I would pass on this one. Then I read your last sentence:
"My inner old-schooler won't allow me to let it go, so I'll see you in there!
"
As an old schooler myself, this really got me interested. I look forward to reading your full review. I hope you find the human side more enjoyable and can give the game a positive recommendation.
I too appreciate the information you provided. I'm not convinced yet that it is worth checking the game out, but I look forward to future information on it.
I'll be interested to see how things are when the game is live (for real, not just "this is launch day").
There are definitely things wrong with the game, no doubt about it. When I was done playing during my short time in the beta, I asked myself the only question that really mattered though... did I have fun?
Even with all the tools I had to deal with, my answer was yes, so I'll be giving it a shot. I just don't want anyone thinking I'm giving it an A+ score or anything if they decide to try the game out
Darkfall Hands-On Preview: The Rise of the Ninja (Looter)
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