MMOCrunch Darkfall Review
Posted by Stropp on February 19, 2009If you are keenly interested in the upcoming release of Darkfall, there’s a fairly comprehensive review of Darkfall at the beta stage over at MMOCrunch. Paragus has gone into quite a bit of detail about what the game is about — although you should know that already if you’re keenly following — and doesn’t pull any punches about what he thinks works, and what he thinks doesn’t work.
I’m in two minds about Darkfall. On the one hand it’s a trip down memory lane. Paragus compares it alot to Asheron’s Call and Ultima Online as Darkfall is a skill based system. A system I think has been poorly neglected in this class based MMORPG world. There’s also the notion that Darkfall will be a challenging game. The developers aren’t looking to make life easy.
On the other hand, there are some mechanisms I’m not sure that I’ll like very much, and some that I know I won’t enjoy. For instance, not being able to use the mouse pointer when playing — other than being in menu mode — doesn’t appeal to me. I like using the mouse, it’s convenient.
High Impact PvP where everything carried is lost is another thing I’m not sure about, especially if there is no way of avoiding it. Eve Online has the same mechanism. If you’re killed, you lose your ship, cargo, even your skills if you don’t have an appropriate level clone and are podded. But Eve has high-sec space where, while not completely risk free, there is a high measure of safety from gankage. Does Darkfall have the same safety net? I’m not sure. I don’t particularly want to be attacked everytime I set a foot outside a town.
Other things, for instance graphical quality don’t worry me that much. Don’t get me wrong, I like gorgeous graphics, but I learned a long time ago fantastic graphics mean squat if the gameplay sucks. Cough**Conan**Cough.
So, I’m certainly tempted by Darkfall, but I think I’ll leave it for a few months before I give it a try. It will give the devs a chance to iron out any bugs and gameplay issues, and to get the inevitable launch day/month blues out the way.
Darkfall should be released by the end of February.
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Did you play UO at launch, before they softened it up? You could get attacked anywhere back then, even in town (though if you yelled “Guards!” a guard would appear and kill your attacker). Outside of town anything was game, and you’d get stripped clean after they killed you.
It was intense and forced you to create tight bonds with your guild.
But it was also fist-through-the-monitor frustrating when the client would freeze or something, and you’d log in to find yourself a ghost and all your gear gone. Even without technical reasons it was pretty frustrating to be heading back to town with 3 trustworthy friends and run into a PK band of 20 people who’d kill all four of you and take everything you owned.
I think I’m just too old for that kind of stuff these days.
Nope, when UO came out in 98 — here in Oz — I foolishy scoffed at the idea of multiplayer only and remained playing my single player games. It wasn’t until 2000 when I purchased Asheron’s Call — because I couldn’t find EQ — and discovered the joys of MMO. I played on the non-PvP servers though so I didn’t experience the ‘fun’ of Dorktide, except for a brief foray into continual fist-through-the-monitor gankage.
I knew that UO did have the high impact PvP originally, I thought that towns were safe though.
When I did try UO around 2003 in a fit of GADD, it was on the sanitized server.
I’d like to not be too old for that stuff.
My knee-jerk reaction to the (very good) review was “first person only? Yeeaarghh!” I understand why it’s done, and it fits the game, but I just can’t get used to it; aside from making me want to hurl in most games where I’ve tried it, I don’t like half my screen being ground texture and I don’t like the lack of peripheral vision. As I said on Wiqd’s post, till we get VR I probably won’t go FPS.
That said, the “entirely player-driven” economy, if true, intrigues me, and I too am getting that nostalgic AC thing, even though I never played on Darktide either. I may try it in a few months if a) the box isn’t too hugely expensive and b) there’s a free month (which is standard these days for most games).
If I do try it, I’ll be attempting to stretch the bounds of the game and find out if a dedicated crafter is not only possible but also viable, with the right friends. I have my doubts.
That was my first reaction too, not for the motion sickness though, but that I like to see my character in the world even when I’m not fighting.
The player driven economy is interesting and it works well for Eve. With full loot item loss it might be very viable. If you do attempt to try a dedicated crafter I’d be interested in seeing how it plays out on your blog.
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