Aion’s Issues

This will probably be my last write up regarding Aion.  If you have been following my previous articles, I have detailed my play experience with the game by focusing on the 1-10 experience, 10-25 early Abyss, and the 25 and beyond.  This will be my last word on Aion for the time being because some of the game’s issues have forced most of my guild to step back from the game.

Now I am not one to make “I quit” posts typically, but all thing considered, I believe my assessment of the game in previous articles has be pretty fair and objective.  So what I would like to do here today is talk about some of the aspects of Aion that ultimately ended up turning us sour in a constructive and informative way.

The Grind

It seems you can’t read anywhere about Aion without reading about the grind, and this blog has been no exception to that.  That being said, it has to be mentioned because this is probably the first of several pitfalls that is going to be cause people to throw in the towel.

This is a graph that fairly accurately plots the experience points curve in Aion at each level that was made by a member of the community here.  As you can see by the graph, right around level 35 the amount of exp needed literally makes the graph look literally like a wall.  Often times when you read on various forums about people saying the grind is fine, make sure you put it into the context of what level they have made it to. Now to be fair, the amount of exp needed by itself is not necessarily the problem as you start to enter your 40′s, but the way in which questing starts to play far less of a role.

When I hit level 42, I quickly completed all of the new quests and looked down at my 60 million exp bar to see only about 10-15% of it had been filled, leaving the remaining 50 million to be obtained by pure mob grind.  Now I am well aware of an upcoming patch slated to increase the quest exp and mob exp, but I think the problem goes a bit deeper than that.  There is a real lack of quest content that becomes painfully obvious at the higher levels.  Quest content is very good at masking grind in other games, so the lack of it in Aion at this level range really only adds to the pain and tedium.

The best comparison I can make is for those who played Age of Conan at release and hit the wall around level 50 where the quest content dried up almost instantly forcing people into grinding cannibal caves for levels to get through the gap.  This problem only gets compounded more however as the exp needed to level continues to grow exponentially, but the amount of content does not.  This only helps feed the bot epidemic and will undoubted crush the will of non-hardcore players as they reach the higher levels.

One final note on the grind that really bothers me is that Aion seems to punish grouping.  As a ranger, I found in most cases I was able to solo grind far more efficiently than in a group killing elites a few levels higher than me.  I would highly recommend adjusting the experience modifier for grouping to make it more appealing to group.  So with all the above factored in, players struggling with the progression in the game are going to start to ask if it’s worth enduring for the sake of PvP.  Let’s take a look…

PvP

I like to break the PvP elements in Aion into pretty much 3 different categories.  First you have your rift PvP into enemy territory, then the fortress fights, and finally your small scale encounters that occur in the Abyss.

1) Rift PvP

A week or so ago, my guild got a group together to through a rift into the Asmodian level 30+ area to go cause some trouble.  I think it was a real telling moment to me personally when it became glaringly clear that at least half of the people we were killing in this zone were bots.  When attacked, bots would simply stand there or continue to attack their mob, and when killed they would run the same exact route back to the same spot literally upwards of 10 times.  Each time they would take the same exact route, to the same exact spot, and not even stopping or deviating when getting attacked.  Granted killing the bots was a good source of Abyss points, but the fun of the PvP leaves something to be desired when a PvE mob offers more resistance.  Again in all fairness, there were probably 50% real people mixed in who had guilds, who would react to being attacked, and change tactics after being killed or spotting us.

In this regard, I really have to say that NCSoft’s bot detection team or tools, or whatever they are spinning as is either completely worthless, or they think their customers are stupid.  Who the hell is in charge of the bot spotting team, Stevie Wonder?  Anyone with a working pair of eyes can see dozens of bots infesting the level 30+ area on both sides.  They are so blatantly operating out in the open that there is no way possible anyone could NOT see them.  Frankly when I read NCSoft press releases about how they have tools in place, it’s insulting to my intelligence.

2) Fortress Battles

I think most people can agree that the fortress fights make up one of the key elements of the PvP aspect of Aion.  In my last article, I touched on the fact that crashing seemed to be somewhat of an issue during some of the sieges.  Since then, I have had the chance to participate in many more sieges to see how much of an issue the crashing really is.  I can say with all honesty in almost every siege I have been in since then, the game crashed at some point during the sieges, except for one where the Asmos never showed up to defend and I had all of the character models turned off (Shift + F12).

This is a major problem for me on so many levels.  First of all my PC is pretty serious, and judging by all the posts on forums and conversations with most of my guild, people having this issue are a pretty sizable portion of the playerbase.  This is pretty much game-breaking because the fortress battles are the only way to get medals, and medals are needed to get the top PvP reward gear, so crashing during sieges pretty much makes is close to impossible for you to get the medals needed to pursue the endgame gear.  With the game being out so long overseas, and 4-5 rounds of betas in NA, I am somewhat confused how the game went live without anyone knowing about this being picked up, let alone not being hotfixed.  It’s even sillier when someone in the community posts a fix on the forums before your professional coders can do it.

Another issue is a flaw in the overall fortress system in general that also Warhammer Online suffered from, a lack of incentive to defend a fortress.  Medals are not given for a successful defense, and enemy fortress guards are actually a better source of Abyss points than most other mobs and players.  Killing a handful of guards seems to net more AP than running the instance you get access to for holding the fort.  So when you think about it, you are somewhat better off not defending because you will be granted a better source of AP, and a chance to earn medals when you go after it again later (assuming you don’t crash).

3) Small Scale PvP

Small scale PvP overall remains one of the game stronger suits to me personally.  The only zerging that really goes from what I have seen so far is during the fortress fights, which is completely understandable.  The rest of the time people tend to roam around solo or in small groups making for some pretty fun encounters.  A smaller group of players who play smart is capable of beating a larger group if the right tactics are used along with the right crowd control.

I think if there is anything I would change, I would make other players worth more experience points.  Although it wasn’t in the game originally, the amount of exp given for killing a player is so small that they pretty much may as well not give you any at all.  One other aspect is the fact that low level players give virtually no AP, but at the same time your enemy’s level is hidden.  This can be annoying when you opt to chase someone for quite a long distance only to be rewarded with 1 AP.  Had you known the person’s level you may have been inclined to not even bother chasing them extensively.  I also understand the benefit though of hiding levels, so it’s a double-edged sword I suppose.

Summary

The way I see it is that players will need to start asking themselves this question: Is worth enduring a steep and tedious grind that becomes exceedingly light in content for PvP that has 2 of out 3 aspects not meeting expectations?

The prospect of increasing exp sounds good in theory, but there is no mention of any much needed quest content.  NCsoft’s word is becoming losing a tremendous amount of value to players due to their inability to find the bots that every player with a pair of working eyes can see on a daily basis.  I can understand that many players may be willing to hang in there a bit longer given the game’s polish and small scale PvP, but at this point I have to say the answer to that question is “no” from me personally, but to each their own.

Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com

Aion: Updated Impression and the Abyss

Since my last article review of Aion at a low level, I have had a chance to invest a bit more time in the Chinese version of the game.  Having progressed far enough to see the Abyss finally, I wanted to take some time and give some updated impressions on my play experiences since I am a bit farther into the game.

The Grind

The first thing I want to touch on are my experiences with the grind in the game so far.  From levels 1-20, I can say that I was pretty much able to quest through most of my levels.  The campaign quests give a substantial amount of EXP over the standard quests, and there are some repeatable quests to help you through some of those areas where you do find yourself grinding to reach the next level after your quests are all completed.

Between the levels of 20-24, the grind starts to pick up more and more each level.  The percentage of your levels EXP you are able to get through quests starts to gradually go down in this range for a few reasons.  The first is that the amount of exp to reach the next levels ramps up pretty quickly, and secondly, some of the quest EXP rewards don’t seem to be enough.  The repeatable quests really don’t reward to well either, as one requiring you to kill X amount of mobs, rewards you at turn in with amount of exp equal to killing 2 of those mobs.  In the time it takes you to go turn them in, you could have kept killing and came out better off.  As a result, I spent a lot of my time grinding in the jungle and desert in Eltnen. Once reaching 25 however, things seem to pick up a lot (I’ll touch on this later).

Legions (Guilds)

During my time playing, I had a chance to delve into the Legion functionality with some of my guys on the NA and Chinese versions.  My first beef is that Aion only allows 3 different ranks for your legion members, and these rank titles can’t seem to be changed.  While you can set permissions for each of the 3 ranks, you can’t have 2 people be the highest rank.  In MMO guilds like mine where there are 2 leaders, this is somewhat disappointing and inconvenient.  The current version I played during the NA weekend and Chinese also only allow 10 characters for your legion name, which I find unnecessarily restrictive.  Since my guild’s name is 11 letters long, I can only fit “Inquisitio”.  This forces us to abbreviate ourselves to INQ, and I am sure other MMO guilds will have to do the same unless the newer version updates we haven’t played yet increase the character limit.

Aion legions also have levels like some other MMOs like EQ2 and WAR.  Unlike its predecessors, Aion only has three levels for legions.  Upgrading your legion to level 2 requires having 10 people on your roster, and a payment of around 120,000 gold.  Once you upgrade, you will have roster limit increased from 30 to 60 maximum members, although in my opinion the fact that there is one at all strikes me as silly.  Once you upgrade, you can also customize a guild emblem for your cloak.  There are only a dozen emblems, but you can pick any background color you can imagine.  You can also change your guild emblem at any time if you so chose for a small fee.

The one really good aspect of Aion’s legion system is if you are able to upgrade to level 3.  Level 3 requires a higher roster count and around 1.2 million gold, which is not as bad as it sounds on paper given how much money I was making.  Any decent size guild should have no trouble getting this cash together if everyone kicks in a bit of cash.  At level 3, the limitations of the emblem system redeem itself by letting you put your own design.  This means you can literally use any graphic or logo you want to represent your guild.  During my playing I managed to see some pretty interesting logos as seen in the above screenshot.  Overall I think there is room for improvement in the legion functionality, but specialized level 3 emblems make for an awesome feature.

Rifts

Once you reach level 20 and start to move into the third tier of zones, you will start to get your first taste of PvP.  It seems like every so often, there are rifts or portals that appear somewhat randomly that connect to the other faction’s area.  These rifts seem to have a chance to appear in one of many predetermined locations across the zones, which are quite large, and have a set number of uses before they become unusable.  From my own experiences, it seems that at almost any given time there is a rift up that either leads to the enemy area or has the enemy coming into yours.

There are no PvP restrictions in terms of where you can go and who you can attack.  Enemies can even go inside the perimeter of your main fortress if they are careful to avoid guards, which is not difficult.  While you are able to attack anyone of any level, you will not know what level the people on the other faction are.  This makes for some interesting encounters where people misjudge the strength of their opponent.  In one personal experience, a bunch of us ganged up on a single enemy only to have him obliterate all of us by dropping a meteor on us!  In addition to the PvP points awarded, there are special “infiltration” quests that require you to go to the enemy zone and complete tasks there.  In this regard the rift aspect of the game makes the PvP not consentual, which is fine by me but may turn off others.

The Abyss

Once your reach level 25 the game starts to open up and you are allowed to start delving into the Abyss, which is the games central area for RvR.

As soon as you hit level 25, you will receive a new campaign quest series to complete in order to be able to access the Abyss.  The campaign consists of 3 mini trials you have to go through in order to prove your worth, but also double as a minor tutorial.  The first test consists of proving your worth by completing 1 task from 3 available choices.  I chose a challenge to kill some monster under the arena in a certain time limit that was laughably easy.  The second trial tests your knowledge, and has you answering a series of multiple choice questions that serve to educate you a little about the Abyss and some of the game’s lore.  It’s impossible to fail it seems as picking the wrong answer prompts you to try again among the remaining choices.

The final trial is a test of flight in which you have to fly through a series of rings in a short time.  This serves to educate the player about the use of these rings which are present in the Abyss.  Flying through the rings replenishes a portion of your flight timer and gives a small speed boost during the trial.  Like the previous trials, it was not difficult at all and I was able to complete it on my first run through.  Once all trials are complete, you are shown to the Abyss portal (as seen above) and are free to go through whenever you want.

Once you arrive in the Abyss, you will find yourself in a fully functional fortress area with pretty much everything you will ever need.  The fortress was complete with various vendors, banks, auction house, bind point, and even teleporters to take you to many of the games PvE zones.  You will also notice that there are new standard quests for the Abyss that helps alleviate the strain from leveling, as well as campaign.  The first campaign mission presents the player with a simply amazing tutorial about RvR in the Abyss through the use of various cutscenes.

Abyss Tutorial

Here is a quick summary:

The first thing they explain is that the Abyss has a total of 9 keeps that you can fight over, and they are spread across 3 different layers: bottom, core, and top.  The Balaur are a monster faction that participates in the Abyss wars, and they often take over these keeps.

Each keep has some sort of damage shield that protects it from air assaults.  Trying to attack a keep from the air while the shield is up is supposed to be difficult and damaging.  Inside each of the keeps is some sort shield generator that powers the shield.  If this generator is destroyed, then the shield goes away and people are free to assault from the air without any kind of penalty or negatives.

Each of the keeps has doors to protect it from ground assaults that will need to be broken down in order to gain access.  The doors are also especially vulnerable to siege weapons that can be deployed by the attackers.  In addition, there are also portable bind points that can be dropped in the field so that people can respawn close to the fight.  These bindpoints are supposed to easily destroyed and only be able to be used a certain amount of times before being rendered useless.

Finally they explain about artifacts that can be used to sway the battles.  They are supposed to be activated to provide various effects from mass healing, mass damage, and other assorted abilities.  They also tell you to kill the boss to take the keep, and elaborate on the benefits of taking on for your legion. Benefits range from Abyss points, items (including Abyss medals), cash, and other bonuses in the newer versions of the game we haven’t received yet.  They also give you a final warning about some sort of Balaur flying battleship that can drop monsters into areas to mess with people.

The Abyss environment itself look very nice and seems to vary as you go from island to island.  The entire area is flight enabled, and the rings can be used to guide you over some of the longer stretches between islands.  There are teleports that take you from the bottom level to the top level, but if you look up at the sky on the bottom level you can see the upper level far above.

The core of the Abyss can be seen in the center and resembles a large sun-like ball of fire.  In case you were curious, flying into this ball of fire will result in being insta-gibbed.  PvE in the Abyss was getting me around 13 AP (Abyss Points) per kill at level 25.  The fact that you can gain points through PvE can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at things.  On one hand some people might not like the fact people can PvE grind their way up the ranks to abyss abilities and gear.  On the other hand, people opting to take this route do so in an area where they can be ganked at any moment, so it will help drive traffic to this area making people somewhat easier to find.

Rewards

Abyss rewards come in the form of abyss abilities for reaching certain ranks, and item rewards for cashing in your points.

Over on Aion Source, I spotted this thread that shows an example of some of the high ranking Abyss abilities.  One of the more notable abilities this high ranking person has is the ability to effectively turn themselves into a raid boss once every 2 hours for 10 minutes.  This is definitely an interesting dynamic that should be interesting to see in action.

Items are the other major reward you get from PvP.  There are stores in which you spend your Abyss points in order to purchase high end gear.  There are various degrees of gear for each level range that have varying prices.  Most of the green items can be bought purely with points, but some of the high level gold (epic) items also require medals which are earned during fortress sieges.

The Abyss gear actually looks to be itemized well, a problem that WAR had at launch with a lot of its PvP reward gear.  The above picture shows 2 Abyss bows that are both level 30.  The green one costs much less AP then the gold one, but the gold one features more damage, stats, and socketing slots for manastones.  It is up to the player to decide if they want to hold out for the higher end item, or hold out for higher level gear.  Since players lose AP for PvP loss, some may want to cash out sooner depending on their luck.  One final point, spending points you have earned subtracts them from your total, thus reduces your rank.  This means as people purchase items, there will be a constant moving up and down the RvR ranks, and high rank players will have to decide if they want to give up their rank abilities to cash out their points for weapons.

Conclusion

I really am looking forward to seeing how this all pans out when the game releases in North America.  The game has solid PvP rewards, risk, and keeps / artifacts for people to fight over.  For all the comparisons you hear about this game with WoW because of the playstyle, I’m starting to think it might be in many ways like an asian DAOC.  If everything works out, I think this game could offer a lot to people who were fans of DAOC and disgruntled Warhammer fans.  I look forward to continuing my journey on the Chinese version a while longer, and I am curious to see how the patches NA will have at release alleviate some of the issues with the game.  If they can reduce the grind as they claimed in a recent interview, then I think this will be a game a lot of people will probably be jumping into if the end game ends up being solid.

Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com

Darkfall: Alliances and War

Since the writing of my last entry, massive battles have broken out across Agon, and with these battles, the formation of alliances are starting to shape the political landscape.  In a previous entry, I mentioned the web of guild relations and the possibility of a political map to help everyone understand it.  Apparently the Darkfall community has decided to take matters into their own hands and we are starting to see the community try to understand where the lines are drawn.

When you look at the larger map, you can see the workings of what appears to be geopolitical relationships in some areas of the world.  Specifically, the 4 sub-continents seems to have certain guilds who are working together in alliance to either fully control certain land masses, or who are bent on conquering them by driving off other guilds.

This very situation manifested itself over the weekend when one of the guilds on Nilfheim (Ice Island) became the target of a massive assault that brought hundreds of players to their city looking to retaliate against them for previous attacks.  While the attackers inflicted massive damage to all of the structures, without a formal challenge, the city’s ownership remained intact.  The next day a formal challenge was issued, but this time the defenders were able to rally a coalition of their own and managed to hold off onto their city.  Needless to say, the server was pushed to the limits and in some cases beyond leading to some people in the 300 man battle to suffer random disconnects.

The Challenge

In order for a city or hamlet to change ownership, and challenge must be issued by one guild to another.  When the challenge is issues, it lasts for a period of 6 hours that is divided into 2 stages.  During the first stage (4 Hours), the guild that issued the challenge will have its own city or hamlet vulnerable and up for grabs.  This adds what can be a substantial risk to picking a fight with another guild as you can rest assured that that they will try to rally their allies to derail the attack at the issuer’s city.  Once that stage expires, the challengers will then be able to commence their assault on their target (2 Hours).  If at any time during this entire challenge the guild leader who issues the challenge is killed or goes offline, it is considered a loss and the challenge ends.  There is also a monetary price that I will touch more on later, but guilds issuing challenges who do not own land will need to pony up a large amount of gold to compensate for the risk factor.  If they win they keep the gold, if they lose the enemy keeps it.

My Siege Story

I’ll try to put some of this into context from my first siege experience which happened over the weekend.  One of our allies decided they wanted to target a specific enemy city on a nearby remote island because one of its resources was a harbor, and they belonged to another alliance of guilds that they have an unfavorable view towards.  The challenge was issued by our ally, and our first order of business was to assist in the defense of their city and protection of the guild leader until we could progress to the attack stage.

We all decided to saddle up and put on our Sunday’s finest gear because after all, this is the type of situation we play for.  As a hamlet owner, we found the city to be awe striking in both size and complexity.  Upon arrival we saw the walls were lined with people on every side, and this particular city has large cannon towers on each side.  I was able to take control of the cannon for a short period of time just to see what it was like, and it reminded me much like sitting in a turret seat in an FPS game.  The guild leader who issued the challenge was held up in a very large keep, and the entrance leading into it was blocked by rows of people in the event someone breached the outer wall.

Since we showed up to the city in the tail end of the defense stage, we didn’t really see any action as the enemy was making their own preparations for the likely assault we were getting ready to mount.  There were probably upwards of around 200 people on our side inside making preparations, and my PC handled it better than I thought, although there were many in my guild who experienced some crashes and had to turn down settings.  I found that I only had to turn down the number of sounds in the audio options, and I was surprised how well the client handled this number of people in such a small geographical area.

As the defense stage came to end, the challenge issuing guild began to hand out siege hammers at their bank to all who could take one.  This was one aspect of the monetary costs I mentioned earlier, as these are the main tool for destroying structures at this stage in the game’s life.  Buildings in Darkfall can’t be destroyed with normal weapons and magic, only by siege related equipment, so these hammers are the main tool being used since nobody is far enough along to roll out war hulks and large boats.

We soon traveled to the coast nearby and started making our way from island to island.  I have to say it was definitely a sight to remember seeing so many people at once moving together as a large mass and some people even brought rafts along to make the trip easier.  Unfortunately during this leg of the journey, some of the minor random disconnects that hit us earlier become a bit more frequent.  Some of the people who ended up being dropped while in the water logged back in to find themselves back at their bindstone miles away from the battle.

It was at this point that tragedy struck.  Among the large group of people who experienced a disconnect, was the challenge issuer.  The current rules state that if that person goes offline at any time during the challenge, it counts at a loss.  Needless to say there was a lot of anger and frustration on the part of the challenger.  The previous 4 hours defending, the organization getting the army together, and the extremely high monetary cost all were wasted.  A source from Aventurine tells me they are aware of the issue and looking at ways to make this aspect easier, so we can only hope that some changes to this part of the mechanic are considered to prevent future unintended forfeits.

Despite the upsetting setback, the remainder of us decided to keep going just to see what happens.  As I was marveling at the sheer number of people we had, I wondered if it was really going to be necessary.  When I finally arrived at the enemy city, I was in amazement at how many people were there waiting for us in a defensive position as the city was located atop a cliff (reports are upwards of 200).  We were greeted by the largest volley of magic that I had ever seen, it reminded me of a scene from Star Wars with all the energy flying through the air, no screenshot or words I can say will ever really do it justice.

The enemy alliance had one of its guilds try to attack from behind, but the accidentally tipped their hand too soon and were discovered.  With our numbers diminished from the disconnects and all the plasma flying at us from the well defended city, we decided to make the most of the situation and turn our focus to the guild trying to flank us.  This led to an initial melee that quickly had them retreating into a chase that went into the ocean and nearby islands.  The result was widespread fighting and chaos that left many of them dead, and quickly stripped naked of their belongings.

Apparently hell bent on getting every last one of these guys, someone on my side dropped a raft into the water where literally a dozen guys packed onto it, effectively chasing down and shooting at anyone who was still left alive.  After we finished them off, most of the force decided to recall home and reflect on the evenings events.  I have to say that despite how much it sucked to lose the challenge, many of us still had an experience that we will remember for a long time to come.  Hopefully Aventurine will continue to evaluate and make changes to help streamline the siege process to prevent future incidents from occurring.

Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com

Darkfall: Guild Functionality

Those of you who are familiar with my some of my articles may know that one aspect of MMO’s that is important to me as a guild leader is guild functionality.  In my recent review of the Darkfall Beta, I didn’t really have a chance to delve into this side of the game.  The few guildmates I had in the beta with me were more focused about gathering general information about the game, but now that Darkfall has gone live, my guild has been able to take a look at what is a surprisingly deep guild user interface.

Main Menu

This is the main menu of the guild interface. Right away we can see that there are a wide variety of features that you won’t find in many other MMOs.  The interface has a built in message board system in the game for your guild, and a separate officer’s forum.  While I am sure most guilds that are remotely serious already have their own website with these, it is definitely an interesting addition.

Aside from the forums, we can see some other standard features like the general roster and guild bank management.  Depending on the nature of your guild, there is actually a built in KOS (Kill on Sight) list that some might want to utilize to make a note of who is at the top of your shit list.  If your guild is involved in the conquest side of the game, there is an interface to show your status with other guilds, and another to keep track of your guild’s conquest history.

Roster

This is the bread and butter screen of pretty much every guild interface in every MMO.  The roster in Darkfall contains a lot of the general information listing all of the members, their clan rank, race, gender, and online status.  Unique to Darkfall on this screen however is a listing of each members alignment, so that everyone can monitor how close to going red or blue each member is.

Across the top of the roster there are several tabs that provide even more information.  The “Fighting” tab shows a list of all kills that members of your guild have done to people who are on your KOS list or in guild which has been declared as enemy status.  We also see the “Support” tab which keeps tracks of players who have been revived (helping up an incapacitated player) by the guild members during a time of war.  Conversely, the “Ganking” tab tracks the ganks (final blows to incapacitated players) that members have performed to those on the KOS and enemy guild list.

KOS List

The kill on sight list is the tool in which to declare a specific player an enemy of your guild.  I am sure we all have heard other players threatening other players with KOS lists in other games, but Darkfall actually has it built right into the game.  So if you were one of those people who kept the list next to the computer or had the list on your forums, you can put away the pen and paper.

With this addition, now all of the members of your guild will have access to the individuals on your shit list.  The list will display data on the KOS individual including their name, guild, rank in that guild, and gender.  This makes for a useful tool to target a specific member of a certain guild without declaring war an their entire roster.  Although one would have to imagine that singling out and killing a certain member of a guild could lead to an escalation, but that is left up to the players to decide.

Guild Bank

This is the tool in the guild interface that allows the guild to track and monitor activity of member interaction with the guild bank.  The main screen can be sorted out between deposits and withdraws, and lists the item and the quantity in each transaction.

The amount of data listed can be sorted by time. You can decide to only see today’s transactions, or you can opt take see all the transactions digging back to a week, month, or all time.  Across the top we first see the “Resource” tab, which consolidates the transactions.  For example, instead of seeing 10 transactions from members adding 50 gold each, the resource tab simply consolidates it to 500 gold for easier viewing.  The “Current Items” tab is a complete inventory list of all the items that in the guild bank vault.

Diplomacy

The diplomacy tab is a tool in the interface that displays your relationships with clans as defined by the guild.  Given how guild oriented the game can become, this tool helps you assign a value to guilds so that members can see the policy towards other guilds.  I like to think of this window much like the diplomacy adviser from Civ 4 in that it helps you untangle the web of relationships between your guild and the various others that you are bound to cross paths with as you play the game.

Clan Empire

This is the tool in the interface that tracks activity relating to guild conquest.  Think of this an as event log that keeps track of various aspects and events during your wars with other clans.

Down the side of the tool, we can see that members are able to filter the list by wins, losses, treaties, and active conflicts.  Across the top of the screen, first we see the “Cities” tab.  This enables guild members to view all information regarding the cities the guild controls and destroyed.  The “Structures” tab lists all structures that the guild has either disabled or destroyed.

The Verdict

The Darkfall guild UI is definitely one of the most intricate my guild has seen in an MMO, and is the first we have seen in a while to give the Everquest 2 guild UI a run for its money.  The only issue is that it seems that opening it up can take a few seconds for it to load because it uses some form of HTML.  Hopefully this should give other guild leaders and future members an idea of the tools that we have at our disposal.  I mentioned in my beta review that to really experience all of what Darkfall has to offer, you should consider playing with friends or joining up with a guild.  I hope that this has provided you with some insight on that experience.  Aventurine has clearly spent a lot of time working on this side of the game, and as time goes on we will hopefully get a better idea of how all of this will come together.

Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com

Review: Darkfall Beta

Darkfall Online is a game that is not for everyone. The nature of the game is such that you will either love it or absolutely hate it depending on your playstyle. If you are a casual gamer, someone who does not like harsh PvP in an MMORPG, or you place a heavy emphasis on graphics, there will probably be little here that will appeal to you. On the other hand, if your MMO history involves playing games like Ultima Online or Asheron’s Call, like PvP with consequences, and value gameplay over graphics, there is a good chance that this game will provide you with something you have haven’t seen in a long time.

Darkfall is a lot different than most MMO’s. The game is entirely skill-based, meaning there are no levels, no experience points, and all advancement happens through the raising of various skills through use. The core of the game revolves around open free-for-all PvP with full looting. This means that when you die through PvP or PvE, the entire contents of what you are wearing and carrying can be snatched up by anyone. Now while the game allows you to attack anyone, the games races are divided up into loose teams, but whether you respect those teams is completely up to you.

There are consequences for your actions in Darkfall. Should you choose to attack members of your own team and go “red”, your experience in the game will be different than those who work with their racial team. Unlike other MMOs, Darkfall only allows you one character per server, which means that if you chose to go red, you will not be able to log onto a non-red alt character to get supplies and switch back. It is also worth mentioning that unlike some other RvR based MMOs, there are no language barriers stopping you from saying whatever you want to anyone else.

Character Creation seems fairly simple. I would say its has a bit more options than WoW and WAR, but not even close to AoC. You get to pick your face, hair color, facial hair, and various natural jewelry stuff like rings through your nose. There is no setting for height, and no sliders to sculpt your character’s face and body like Oblivion / AoC. Once you decide on your look, you’ll have to chose a first and last name (yes, the last name is mandatory). Once you are all squared away, you get to chose from 1 of 3 starting cities near your racial capital and you are off to start your journey with nothing except an undroppable starter weapon. I was very surprised by the size of the starter town when I first logged in, I vision of some huts on a dirt road was thrown out the window pretty quickly. I do think they could definitely use some more NPC’s, it looks like there are no non-essential NPC’s at all and it makes the town seems a bit deserted given how big they are.

User Interface

The UI has a learning curve. If you have played other recent MMOs, you can pretty much just forget everything you have seen. The cookie-cutter interface from WoW, EQ2, WAR, AOC is completely gone. I think people are going to struggle with it the first time they sit down and it could turn some people off. Luckily, there is a small tutorial to help you get your bearings. Right clicking the mouse turns the game into UI/Menu mode, much of what you would expect if you pressed the “ESC” key in any other MMO.

When in this mode, you will see that this is the only time you have a mouse cursor on your screen. This means when you are in play mode, there is no clicking on your hotbar to active abilities, you just press the numerically assigned button on your keyboard. The UI is completely customizable as you can move and resize any window to fit your personal preference. The in-game help pretty much tells you that controls will feel better to FPS players over MMO players. The “F” key is the default use button and works just like it would in Call of Duty, as does spacebar with jumping, and “C” for crouching. The “R” key draws your weapon, and will put you into 3rd person if you have a melee weapon equipped.

You can’t loot a target with your weapon drawn. When monster or players die, they leave a tombstone which can be looted by pressing the use key. When the loot box open, this will put you into UI mode, so you will not be able to move or do anything. You also need to open your backpack (Default “B” button) and manually drag and drop the items from their corpse to your bag one at a time. This will definitely be perceived by many as clunky, but at the same time there is a case to be made by others that looting should not be fast to prevent people from cleaning out bodies quickly in the middle of a heated battle. After playing for a while, I think it has grown on me a lot because the time associated with cleaning someone out adds a risk when you are in a heated situation.

My main beef with UI is the chat box. The chat box has multiple tabs that correspond to the different channels, such as group, clan, local, tells, and alliance. The problem with this is that it is becomes easy to miss messages. Let’s say you are in your group chat tab running around looking for trouble, and you run across another player and kill them. Unfortunately, that player asked if he could join you and wanted to provide you with some valuable information, but you missed it because his text was under the local tab that you were not looking at because you were talking in group. Unless you are paying careful attention to the various tabs, you are bound to miss a tell or message in another channel. You can however click and drag those tabs out to create new chat windows for that channel. This also means that having a different chat box for each channel can start to clutter up your screen. I think the chat would be better served with multiple channels in the same tab, and leaving it up to the user to decide which channels they want to see in each tab. Aventurine has stated that further revamping of chat is already in the works and will arrive shortly, so there is a good chance that this will be less of an issue very soon.

The World

The environment looks very nice. The sky looks great, and you can see every branch on every tree swaying in the wind. The game runs very smooth to me with everything cranked, but I have a relatively powerful machine. The graphics are by no means cutting-edge, but considering you are getting a zoneless and seamless world with no loading screens, it looks quite well. The world size does seem massive, and I was shocked to see how little I moved on the world map after walking for a few minutes. Traveling from my starter town to my neighboring enemy’s starter area can take me anywhere from 25-45 minutes on foot depending on my route and how much stamina I burn sprinting. I think it is probably bigger than Asheron’s Call.

There are lots of interesting and hidden places scattered around the world that will appeal to explorer types. I have seen underground cities, giant tree top villages, mountain top fortresses, hidden treasure boxes, and ancient ruins just to name a few. My beef as far as the overworld goes is the scarcity of monsters. Since there are no experience points in Darkfall, monster serve the critical role as a source of items, gold, and materials. This shortage not only makes it difficult to getting these resources, but it makes the world seem a bit devoid of life at times.

Characters and Animations

Chances are that if you are a fan of this game, it isn’t because it is a graphical behemoth. This is one of the areas that people who are sticklers for visuals may be disappointed. The character models are a mixed bag. There are times when I like them, and times were I think they could be a bit better. Graphically, they will come in a distance behind some of the newer MMO’s on the market. I do however think some of the armor models make them look a lot better. When you wear heavier armor, you can see the glare of the light reflecting on some of the metallic pieces, which is a nice touch. It does vary from race to race, I hear a lot of opinions from various people who either like or dislike a certain race’s model design.

The character animations are another issue that detract a little from the game’s visuals. Some of the various animations when characters run around seem a bit off. I think it is something that most people will notice fairly quickly after watching some of the video and in their first hours in the game. Since you are in a first-person view for most of the game, you won’t be looking at your character nearly as much as other games that have you locked in the 3rd person. While they can take some getting used to, they are by no means a game breaker to me and most of the target audience of the game. If they decided to review and rework the animations down the road, I don’t think many would complain, but I think most agree that their time is better spent on other things right now.

Combat
There are 3 major different combat types in Darkfall; Melee, Archery, and Magic. This will most likely be one of the more hotly-contested aspects of the game, where most people will either love it or hate it. Unlike other MMOs, Darkfall’s combat plays out more like a first-person shooter than a traditional MMO. This means there is no tab targeting, your attacks need to be manually aimed, and your attacks can also be dodged. It is also worth mentioning that the different races all vary in size, which means that certain larger races (Ork / Mahirim) may have a larger hitbox than some of the shorter races (Alfar / Dwarf). I have heard some people freak out about this issue making different races having advantages, but as someone who plays a Mahirim, it was not much of an issue for me personally. I am sure others will disagree on this point, but I would just suggest people play what they like and you will adapt.

Stamina also plays a very critical role in combat because when your stamina is depleted, you will not be able to attack or put up much of a defense. Stamina management will be vital to most of your fights, and in most cases, running out of stamina can be as equally devastating as running out of life. Darkfall also seems to recognize back attacks, and rewards them with doing an increased amount of damage. This can make turning your back and fleeing from someone have some risk if the other person is able to hit your back, especially with arrows. To combine these points, some people will find that melee combat will often have some people sprinting the entire time trying to get behind behind their targets or to make themselves harder to hit. While it can be annoying sometimes to fight someone doing this, these people tend to burn themselves out faster, but the use of this tactic will no doubt frustrate some players.

Each of the 3 combat types have skills associated with using them. When that skill reaches 25, new attacks will open up to be purchased. These new attacks initially after purchase do not seem to show a noticeable increase in damage, but after skilling them up a bit, they start to show more of a return. Some players might be disappointed to find that there are not many “special” attacks compared other MMOs for the melee and archery types where you may be used to having a hotbar full of different abilities. As a fan of Asheron’s Call which had literally no abilities, it doesn’t bother me as much because the combat has more freedom than other MMOs by combat having no autolocking hits, but it definitely will be an issue to some players. Hopefully as the game progresses, they will introduce a some more skills down the road to beef up the amount of tools non-magic players have at their disposal.

Melee

This is the most basic forum of combat in the game and most likely the path most will follow, especially at the very start of the game because it is inexpensive. While melee is a bit easier on your purse, it has the obvious drawback of limited range. Different weapons types do however offer varying range, such as polearms reaching farther than daggers.

When your melee weapon is drawn, you will be pulled out into a 3rd-person viewpoint. Even if this view, your visibility behind your character is minimal. This means sneaking up behind people is a legitimate tactic as opposed to other MMOs where you can spin the camera to see behind you. I can testify first hand that this works quite well, which is good because this game has no “stealth” skills like other MMOs that can make you go invisible. The only time in Darkfall where you can spin the camera at your whim is while resting.

Pressing “T” will toggle your attacks between a horizontal slash and a vertical chop. While both of these do exactly the same damage, certain situations may find one over the other as more practical. The horizontal slash makes it easier to connect with your targets due to the wide cone of damage, but in crowded combat, this could also have you striking your allies for damage because the game has friendly fire. A vertical chop while having a narrow cone of damage, works better in crowded situations because it minimizes the chance of striking nearby allies in a frantic battle.

Archery

Firing a bow in Darkfall requires some degree of skill when it comes to aiming your shot. When you fire an arrow, it will arc through the air as opposed to traveling in a straight line like a bullet. This means that the archer will have to compensate for this by aiming the crosshair above his target depending on how far away it is. Pressing and holding your left mouse button will make your character load an arrow, which can be held as long as you continue to hold down the button. This allows you to wait for the moment of your choosing to take your shot.

The upside to archery, besides the range advantage, is that arrows can be very hard to dodge if the shooter has good aim because of the speed they travel towards through the air. The downside to archery is that you can only hit one target at a time, and that arrows are not free. This can make it hard for new and financially struggling players to keep up with the price of obtaining arrows on a regular basis, although many of the starting mobs are known to drop small quantities. Archery only skills up when you shoot an arrow, and since they are not recoverable once fired, raising this skill can end up costing you.

Magic

Magic is broken up into many schools, each with their own spells. In addition to skilling up each school of magic, each spell acts as its own skill. The more you cast a spell, the better you will become with it. Higher skilled spells will evolve and start to travel faster through the air, do more damage, or even shoot multiple projectiles.

Like archery, firing spells at your enemy will require some degree of coordination because they need to be manually aimed. The good news is that magic is a lot easier to aim than your bow because your spells will travel in a straight line exactly to where your crosshair is pointed without arcing. In addition to the ease of aiming and obvious range advantages, many of Darkfall spells have splash damage that can hit a target if your shot is close enough, or even hit multiple targets.

Magic does come with its disadvantages as well. Most of the spells in the game require a reagent or component to cast with the exception of the starter spells. This means the life of a mage can be costly, and skilling up spells and school with components can be a hard road. As such, starting the game as a pure mage right out of the gate will come off as extremely difficult. Spells are also easier to dodge than arrows at range because they are easier to spot and generally travel slower through the air. Magic also has a tendency to fizzle more when you are wearing heavier armor, but there is an armored magic casting skill that helps offset it a little if you are able to skill it up.

Those who delve deep into magic will also be forced later on to make decisions about which schools to pursue. New spells and schools of magic are unlocked as you progress through prerequisite school, but some restrictions start to show up down the road. Darkfall does not let you specialize in schools of magic that are polar opposites, such as Fire and Water, Earth and Air. You can have 2 out of the 4 elements, as long as they don’t clash with each other, but your end game plans will need to be thought out to avoid training in the wrong areas.

Finish Him!

Probably one of my favorite aspects of PvP combat that makes Darkfall unique is the incapacitation of a player when they reach zero life (excluding the rare and freakish decapitation). This starts a 60 second or so window where you get to decide the fate of the fallen player, or have some choice words with them. There are no revive spells in Darkfall, but when someone is in this state, anyone can help them back up without need of any spell or item. If the person lays there for too long, they will bleed to death and expire. The option is also your to deliver the final blow to send the fallen player back to their bind point naked, and ironically this is called the “Gank” skill by the game. Incapacitated players will yell out “HELP ME!” when reaching zero life, which can be heard from quite a distance away.

Quests

Questing in Darkfall at this point doesn’t seem to play as much a role than it does in some of the other more recent MMOs. Considering that there are no experience points, quests seem to be a way to get your hands on some items or cash. Finding the quest givers is not as easy also from recent games. There are no floating icons over NPCs like in WoW, WAR, and AoC. Some vendor NPCs simply will have a quest tab on their menu, but you won’t know until you talk to them.

The quests themselves are really nothing special in all honesty. Most of them consist of the same basic stuff we have seen the last few years where you are sent to either kill a certain amount of a monster, or collect some items from monsters, or kill the monsters in a certain time frame. It isn’t to say they aren’t rewarding to do, but they are just as uninspiring as any other MMO, unless I just haven’t found the good ones yet.

PvE

PvE in Darkfall is a bit different than other MMOs in a few ways. For starters, since there are no levels or a con system, you never really know just how powerful a monster (or player) is until you fight it. Luckily, if you find yourself getting in a bit over your head, it is not too hard to escape the aggro range by sprinting away. Since there are also no experience points, your motivation for engaging in this part of the game will be for monetary gain and equipment. Monsters for the most part seem to drop the items you see them wearing or using in combat, so if a goblin is shooting you with a bow, you can assume that it will be on his body after you beat him. That being said, the monster AI is a step up from other games. Monsters with bows will try to kite you sometimes, others call for help, and some strafe around you to avoid being hit.

There is no kill stealing or tagging system for monsters either. This means anyone can loot anything regardless of who hit it first, last, or did the most damage. While this can sometimes be problematic depending on who is near you, most of the time people seemed to have some degree of respect for who did the dirty work. Another interesting thing though about looting in general, is that multiple people can loot the same target at the same time. I have had situations where me and a friend were both grabbing items out of the loot bag at the same time, which can lead to some humorous situations with people frantically trying to identify and grab the stuff they want before the other guy. Remember that if you are defeated in PvE with people nearby, there is nothing from stopping another player from walking up to you while incapacitated and opting to finish you off and cleaning you out. I can say from personal experience that I have never seen this happen, but I will admit to seeing someone bleed out and getting there too late to save them, then sneakily rummaging through their bag to capitalize on their misfortune.

You also need to be careful not to accidentally damage strangers, or you run the risk of going “rouge” status for a short time, which allows other players to attack you without any alignment penalty for a short time. If 2 players are meleeing the same monster, it can be easier than you think for someone to get accidentally hit by a wild swing, but most of the time other people were good sports about it. There are those who will try to capitalize on it though; I remember a circumstance where I saw one of my guildmates being chased by someone he accidentally hit. Magic users need to be extra careful as well because since most spells have splash damage, it can be very easy to hit both the monster and another player trying to melee the same target.

Alignment System

The alignment system is the main mechanic that determines if you are in good standing or bad standing (red) with members of your own racial pairing. The basic theory is that killing someone who in your racial pairing (who isn’t red) will result in a loss of alignment and bring you closer to being red, while killing the natural enemies of your race and red players will increase your standing. The value of a negative hit is much higher than that of a positive one, so it will take several enemy kills to negate the effects of a single friendly kill. If you only hit another player, will be rogue flagged for a short period of time, in which case you can be killed by friendly targets as a means of self-defense. Your alignment is displayed as the bottom meter in the window where your life, stamina, and mana are located.

Having a bad alignment and going red does have some consequences. Besides the obvious of being a target to everyone in the game, your own racial towns will not welcome you and you will be attacked by the guard towers. You will also not be allowed to bind at the same bindstone as normal players, which makes sense because since the bindstones are in town, you would be attacked immediately. Upon going red, you will be automatically bound to remote bindstones in the wilderness where there is little in the ways of merchants and banks in many cases.

The alignment system has its flaws. For starters, it can be easy to flag other players as rogue status by deliberately trying to place yourself in front of their attacks. This can lead to you getting attacked by what would be otherwise friendly players, who then try to capitalize on your rogue status. This means that when you are in a crowded PvE area with strangers, you need to be very careful about your surroundings. Another personal beef I have is that players of an enemy race have their names colored blue, even though they are technically your enemy. The game displays them as blue because their alignment is good in the context of their race. This can lead to confusion if you see another player at a distance and can’t quite make out what race they may be. I think it would make more sense to display their names in red naturally since you will be rewarded for killing them.

Full Loot

This is one aspect of the game that I think tends to scare away or concern players who have never played in this type of environment, but may be considering it. I’m sure most people following the game know and understand that Darkfall has full loot upon death, which means that everything on your body is lootable with the exception of your starter weapons, but does not include what you may have banked. Every player starts with a single starter weapon which can always be traded for a different one for a small fee of 20 gold. For the price of 100 gold, you can secure a 2nd weapon, and for 1000 gold you can secure a 3rd. Most players will eventually have 3, which will probably consist of a melee weapon, a wand (needed to cast magic), and a bow (no starter arrows). So you will never be without a weapon no matter what happens.

Now I am not going to sugar-coat it, catching a beatdown and waking up at the bindstone in your underwear sucks, and everyone is going to have days where it happens. On the flip side, there is definitely something to be said about bending down over a fallen opponent and seeing a pile of treasure. The first time you do this, it will definitely bring a smile to your face. If full loot scares you, consider the nature of the game. This is not an item-based game, and while items do help a good bit, they are expendable and replaceable. Remember that the core of your strength in Darkfall is your skills, and nobody can ever take that from you. I think people who are used to raiding weeks for epic purple gear might have a hard time understanding this, but hopefully this should give you some perspective.

Summary

Darkfall is still pretty rough around the edges and could use some polish in many areas. Given all of the hype and hysteria surrounding the game, it would be easy to be disappointed if you go into it with unrealistic expectations. The game is being developed by Aventurine, an Indy developer that has made an MMO with a fraction of the manpower, and at a fraction of the price compared to the industry leaders. I personally think the game would have benefited a bit by prolonging the release for at least another month or so, and some players who demand polish may be better off waiting for a little bit before jumping in especially with access being limited initially.

That being said, Aventurine has created the solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time, and I am sure many players will be more than happy to jump into Darkfall at the ground level despite its issues. Anyone who has seen their patches can attest to the fact that they are frequent and robust. I have no doubt that as time goes on, Darkfall will further develop into an interesting and needed alternative to the theme-park model that has been beaten to death in the last few years.

If you are a fan of harsh free-for-all PvP, full looting, clan warfare, and non-linear gameplay, Darkfall might be just the sort of thing you have been looking for. If you are a casual gamer, someone who enjoys a linear style gameplay, or looking for a graphically intense experience, this game might not be for you. I also think to fully appreciate the game, playing with a group of friends or being in a clan will expose you to more of what the game has to offer. I don’t think it was ever intended to have mass appeal, but more to cater to a niche of PvP players who are looking for something more than what is out there now, and I think in that respect it will succeed.

If you have any questions about anything I have said or not said, leave a comment and I will do my best to answer.
Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

www.inqguild.com

DAOC Origins: 6 Months of Silence

A long time ago old Dark Age of Camelot fans were rejoicing when Mythic announced that they were going to be releasing their “Origins” server. Many of the game’s original fans had become disenchanted with DAOC after the release of some controversial expansion packs, and fans had been longing to relive that original DAOC experience.

On June 2nd, 2008, Mythic announced on the Camelot Herald the Origins project and revealed their plan:

“This server is designed to return DAOC to the great game experience it was in 2001/2002, while also applying wisdom from the lessons we have learned since then. DAOC is still a great game, but this server has its own appeal that we ‘old school’ players really enjoyed, and our goal is to get back to that while also continuing to support the other rulesets. Origins will not exactly replicate the game as it was is 2001; we are keeping as a part of server the ‘best features’ we have put into the game since launch, such as housing, horses, the market explorer, UI changes (to name only a few) and many of the improved systems introduced over the years.”

The announcement also goes on to lay out their timeframe for the project:

“The most common question continues to be, “Is this really going to happen?”

Origins has been in development for a couple of months now. We have been working with our Team Leads (as part of the Team Lead program) to work through the various gameplay details, ideas, and issues, while also collecting and reading your feedback. Our schedule requires around four to five months of development. This means that since the server has been in development for two months already, we still have another two to three months before it’s ready for primetime. Right now, launch is slated for the August/September timeframe.”

On July 29th, 2008, Mythic amended their stance regarding their plans for origins by releasing another announcement:

“Initially, we had an aggressive timetable we wanted to meet in order to get this into the players hands as soon as possible. Now, looking at all the feedback and re-examining our own internal goals and objectives for this server, we realize that it’s better to take a step back and take our time with Origins. What this means in practical terms is that you won’t be seeing Origins in the original Aug.-Sept. timeframe. When we are happier with the overall design and functionality, we will begin talking about a launch date. Until then, we thank everyone for participating during this phase of the Origins project.”

It has been almost 6 months, and DAOC fans are left scratching their heads wondering, “Is this really going to happen?” Mythic has yet to give their fans any official updates on the status of the project since then, and now it appears that Mythic has been hit by personnel cuts EA has made due to economic concerns. Mythic no doubt has their hands full with Warhammer Online, which has been wrestling with its own issues. Mark Jacobs made this comment on the Warhammer Alliance regarding the layoffs in regards to Warhammer support:

“It isn’t any more complicated than that other than to say that we have a very large studio and pretty much every person there has been and will continue to work on WAR for quite a while (meaning we haven’t started work on another game yet),” he continued. “When we launched, we had over 400 people working on the game in one capacity or another so it’s not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now.”

There definitely seems to be a demand for Origins, and you would think that given that demand, Mythic would recognize the opportunity to generate some more revenue from their DAOC brand. I find it amazing that there hasn’t been much of an update on the official site in almost 6 months, and one has to wonder if the revenue opportunity is getting smaller the longer they remain silent.

Hopefully the economic turmoil and layoffs have not derailed Mythic’s original plans to give their old fans a taste of DAOC’s original glory.  Perhaps Jacobs is telling the truth about “pretty much everyone” working on Warhammer, but you owe the DAOC customers who made your company successful at least some form of an update on if and when this project will see the light of day, or if it has been canceled.

Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

www.inqguild.com

Darkfall Survey Predicts Playstyles

With the slated release date for Darkfall Online approaching, forums have been buzzing with speculation on various aspects of the game in order to try and forecast what players could expect to see once the game goes live.  Often times in the static of forums post and polls, something interesting gets drowned out in all the noise. Darkfall EU, a fansite for the anticipated MMO, ran a detailed survey that asked future players about their plans and views for when the game goes live. If you have been following Darkfall for a long time like me, you might find the results of this very interesting.  The survey claims to have sampled a pool size of over 1600, and projects a margin of error near 3%. For the purposes of this article I will be using the combined European + North American data tables.

The Race Poll

The Alfar seem to have narrowly won the race poll, but when you consider the margin of error, they are roughly tied with the Humans.  Remember that the premise of Darkfall has the races divided into 3 teams which break down as Humans / Dwarves / Mirdain Vs. Mahirim / Ork Vs. Alfar. If we add up all the percentages based on factional distribution, we see that the Alfar have roughly 25% of the population, the “good” races come in with about 47%, leaving the Mahirim and Orks with roughly 27%.

We can see that the “good” races seem to definitely have the population advantage assuming this data is correct, but we have to take into account that their team also has the most races included in it.  The Orks on the other hand come in last place in terms of popularity by a substantial margin.  On a personal note, I have always been fascinated by the races people pick in MMOs.  I suspect a lot of people may tend to play races that are pleasing to the eye, which could also explain why the Orks might be dead last.

The “Evil” Poll

This is another poll I found to be very interesting. It looks like 2/3 of the players said they would kill someone on their team depending on the situation.  This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the context of that situation, or your viewpoint.  The poll doesn’t allow people to describe that situation, which could probably range from self-defense to capitalizing on a moment of weakness.  We just can’t tell for sure, but what we can see is that about 1/4 of the players are ready to commit murder.

The other table also is very revealing as it asks those who are willing to commit murder what race they plan on playing.  We see that a staggering 38% of them plan to roll Orks, and 36% of them plan to be Alfars, which means the “good” races are the least likely to commit murder.  You have to wonder about the psychology behind this.  Orks are generally perceived to be an evil race in most fantasy settings, so perhaps players who pick Orks are more committed to follow through on being evil? The Alfar on the other hand are on their own team, so many players perceived this as being the hard road, especially with the population against them. Some people speculated that maybe this shared mutual struggle would make the Alfar work together out of necessity, but I am guessing that Alfar players have committed themselves to taking the hard road, so may be more willing to take it all the way.

The “Safe” Poll

Here we can see the people most likely to not be killed.  I find it surprising that the thing people seem to have the most respect for are players engaged in a duel.  Given the number still shows that more than half would kill a person in a duel (if you look at the inverse of the number), there is something to be said about respecting 2 people settling something the old way.  I suppose one could also argue that after a duel the targets will be at their weakest, so I guess I’ll let you decide. Crafters and newbies seems to find a little more love than I expected, but I would argue that a newbie may be harder to identify in Darkfall because you are unable to con players with there being no levels at all. I guess its best to be a good aligned newbie in a duel, if you roleplay or look like a challenge people will be eager to bring you back to reality.

Playstyle Poll

This poll shows us the playstyle the future Darkfall player tends to learn towards, and who the game is appealing towards.  It is no surprise to see that the PvP crowd makes up over half the of target audience, but it also seems that the zoneless and seamless world idea definitely seems to have those explorer types interested in going out into the wilderness to see what secrets the world is hiding. One bit of troubling news is that crafters seem to be in short supply, and according to Darkfall EU he elaborates on this point.

“What may be of some concern is that 67.50% of crafters plan to be in the Human alliance, whereas only 9.90% will be Alfar crafters.  If we assume that 1/4 of players roll an Alfar, it looks like they could be struggling to find a good crafter.”

The “Sausage” Poll

I call this one the sausage poll because it pretty much confirms something I think all we knew deep down.  Darkfall Online will indeed be one of the internet’s biggest sausage fests.

The guys over at Darkfall EU seems to have put a lot of effort into this survey, and hopefully you found this as interesting as I did.  There are a few other tables over there that I didn’t touch on just for the sake of time, but if you are bored you might want to go look over to the Survey Results Page over there, take a look at the entire thing, and read their analysis.   I’m curious to hear your take on the results.

Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

www.inqguild.com

Rant: Warhammer RvR Population Capped!

Mythic released an announcement on the WAR Herald today that I find stunning.  Here are some excerpts from the announcement:

“When the Fortress population reaches certain population thresholds, players who are attempting to enter the area of the besieged Fortress that are Rank 35 and below will be teleported to the warcamp for the region they are in. When the next area population threshold has been met, players that are Rank 37 and below will be teleported to the warcamp. The final population threshold applies to players that are Rank 39 and below. Once the total population cap has been met for the area surrounding the Fortress, all players that attempt to enter the area will be teleported back to the region’s warcamp.”

“Because of the strategic advantage that players will always have when defending a Fortress, the attacking forces will have a numeric advantage when attempting to wrest control of a Fortress from the opposing realm.”

“The purpose of this change is twofold: to improve server stability, and allow even more players to participate in, and benefit from, capital city sieges.”

Now I know some fans of the game and Mythic are trying to spin this into a good thing, but take a step back a moment and think about what is going on.  This game was marketed as a massive RvR game.  The servers are capable of holding thousands of players online at the same time.  Did it not occur to anyone at Mythic during the design phase of Warhammer Online that most of a servers online population of several thousand players would be in Tier 4 at any given moment?  It also seems they are prematurely stacking the population numbers in favor of the attackers.  Can someone explain how capping the population levels will allow even more players to participate?

Mythic finally seems to be admitting what the rest of us knew all along.  Their servers simply can’t handle massive amounts of people fighting in one area at the same time.  Fortress sieges have often times led to the crashing of zones and servers leaving both side throwing their hands up in frustration.  Just like the Contribution System debacle, they are sending out their PR monkeys to try and make their subscribers feel better about the fact that the game was launched fundamentally flawed.

The question going forward now is where is this going to end?  Forums are stirring with speculation over whether or not instancing will be an inevitable step to stop the servers from crashing, or if Mythic can really do something on the hardware end of this problem to make their game work as advertised.  Even if instancing does not happen, capping the population on participation in a siege will make Warhammer Online’s fortress sieges not much different than those found in Age of Conan (which is not a good thing).

The fact that they are trying to spin this by saying “to allow even more players to participate” by capping population in a given area only makes me feel better about pulling my guild out of this game.  I’ll be waiting for the flames from Warhammer fans.

Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

www.inqguild.com