There were doubts even last week when Aventurine announced that the updated Siege System would go live this week, that it would once again be delayed, but players can rest their worries as last night it was announced the revamped system would be deployed tomorrow, Thursday.

Players can expect extended down-time tomorrow during the update and today an addition server-side patch was added to restrict players from initiating any new sieges until tomorrows update. Any current sieges will not be effected.

I’m sure you’ve head that before, but this time it’s really going to happen. Darkfall players, who have been waiting for what seems like forever for the new siege system to be released, today finally heard what they’ve been waiting for, that the new Siege System will be going live next week.

Over the last year, focus has shifted from the current version of Darkfall to Darkfall 2.0 and since, updates to the current version have been few and far inbetween.  The last patch was back in April and the last major update all the way back in October 2010, so you can see why Darkfall players have been anxious for this update.

With the announcement, Aventurine also revealed a few more details to the new siege system, mainly protection shards and extension shards, which can help protect against sieges or allow the defending side to change the start time of a siege respectively.  Although there is some debate internally on whether or not extension shards should be implemented and will most likely not be included in the siege update. Check out the full details on the shards at the official Darkfall blog.

Aventurine released another sneak peek video today of Darkfall 2.0 this time previewing some bonescale armor and revealing the Necroguardian, a new golum creature based on the old obsidian golem. The Necroguardian will inhabit undead areas of Darkfall 2.0.

The new bone armor will be high end medium armor which will require special components to craft it.

Check out the preview video after the jump.

Continued…

Today via the Darkfall blog more information about the upcoming Darkfall 2.0 update was revealed as well as a statement that the release of the new siege system would one again be pushed back.

The update reveals more information about character skill sets and attributes and that they will be effected by the type of armor a player wears.  More info about the world map, crafting system, housing, combat and more was also mentioned.

Tasos Flambouras has this to say about the current development of Darkfall 2.0.

These are just brief mentions on exciting and sweeping changes compared to the existing game. These changes, along with the ones we’re not talking about yet, are the products of years of experience with Darkfall, lessons learned, and thousands of pieces of feedback from the community. In the coming weeks we’ll present each of these points in depth, with specific information on the mechanics of each point.

So it looks like we’ll be getting a lot more information on all of the things mentioned today pretty soon. I only played Darkfall for a short period of time, the UI killed me, but I still like what they’re doing with the game so I might give it another go.

Today Aventurine released another sneak peak video of Darkfall 2.0, this time of the city of Sandbrook. The city has been completely redesigned, so much so that players won’t be able to recognize it as well as optimized so everything is easier to locate.

Sandbrook will also no longer be a starting location, instead it will become a faction city where players can complete new training quests.

Below you can checkout the preview video for Sandbrook as it guides you through the remodel city.

Today Aventurine announced that the new Siege System for Darkfall Online has been completed and is “going through final testing“.  Now that all the pieces are in place, details as to how the new siege system will work have finally been revealed.

The start of a siege remains the same, two clans need to be at war and the attackers must use a clan shard near the clan stone it intends to capture.  Most everything else will be different.

Below is a rundown of the new siege system.  To read the full details, head over to the Darkfall blog.

• Size Matters – A siege against a city will require more members than a siege against a hamlet.  Trial accounts do not count.
• War ain’t cheap – Once a shard is activated, a wager must be placed to begin.  Gold will be taken straight from the clan bank and all attackers will need to pay a wager as well to initiate the challenge.
  • The wager amount is affected by the defenders holding’s power level.
    • The holding power level is determined by how many standing buildins the clan has.
  • The wage is also affected by how many attackers are part of the challenge.
    • The first challenging clan is not affected, however the second challanger and onwards will have to pay a higher wager fee. There is not cap to how many challenging clans there are, but it will get expensive
  • Joining a challenge late will result in a higher wagers.
  • Joining multiple challenges will result in a higher wagers.
• Once a challenge has been declared, the attackers will have a specific amount of time to place at least one siege stone.
• Anyone can declare siege against anyone else at any time.
  • This means if you are sieging a holding and also own your own, you can be sieged while your are sieging someone else.
  • If a clan drops a siege, the defenders may benefit from a wager reduction  if they decide to pay you back in kind while your offensive action against them is active.
• Preparations – Once a stone is placed, siege preparations begin.
• A certain percentage of walls will need to be destroyed before the clan stone goes vulnerable
• If any stones are destroyed by any of the other attackers that are participating in that specific challenge (or defender), then the destroyer’s clan will be getting a percentage of the wager paid by the siege-stone owner, right there and then.
  • Attackers that have all their siege stones destroyed, while the clan stone still stands, are removed from the challenge and are not entitled to any of the wager money.
• If the clan stone is destroyed before the challenge times out, holding ownership will pass on to whichever of the clans that had issued a challenge did the most damage.
  • The wager money will be divided between all attackers that still had an active challenge against the holding when the clan stone got destroyed.
  • Damage dealt to the clan stone will affect the percentage of the wager each attacker will get.
• If all the attackers’ siege stones are destroyed or the challenge times out while the clan stone still stands then the defenders have won and they will be receiving all the wager money.

A new video was released today previewing the upcoming Yssam dungeon in Darkfall 2.0.  While the dungeon and lighting systems have already been seen in previous screenshots, the video shows a new monster and some shiny new, actually not so shiny, armor.

The video is pretty short, a bit over a minute long, so it won’t waste too much of your time.

Aventurine today for the first time have given an ETA for when the development of the Darkfall Online re-launch is expected to be complete.  Via the Darkfall blog, producer Tasos Flambouras stated that development should be completed sometime in August and once it is an official launch date will be announced.  Keep in mind that this is just an estimate and it could be pushed back.  However no mention was made if the re-launch will include a character reset, which is a major concern for players.  Being a game that is now two years old to force a character reset would be catastrophic for many Darkfall players.

Tasos also touched upon a few other things such as the political map, which was supposed to be released back in February.  The political map, which has since been enhanced with many more features, is now a complete information interface and contains everything inside the Darkfall world.  The release of this new tool will also be held back until the re-launch of Darkfall.

As for the delayed Siege System Expansion, it was announced that it should be available within a month.  You can view more details about the Siege system and the changes in the Activity Report via the Darkfall blog.

Along with the information above, Aventurine also released a new video showing off Darkfall’s updated graphics.  Definitely a huge improvement from the current version.

Today via a post on the Darkfall blog, Aventurine posted about the possibility of Darkfall Online being developed for the Asian markets.

There is great interest in Darkfall for Asia. To suit the Asian markets, Darkfall would need to be localized and there would need to be some co-development along with our Asian partners. This will be good for the game overall since we’d be tapping into some vast development resources. Unfortunately I can’t be more specific but there will be announcements when we can.

From the quote it definitely seems Aventurine would love to expand Darkfall into the huge Asian market, so the only real question is when this will happen.

Also in the post was an update on when new dungeons will be added to Darkfall as their has been none over the last year.

The new Central Dungeons  are on the horizon and will consist of 4 different main areas. Depending on which way a player chooses to go through they will end up in one of  four areas and face one of the four main bosses. In addition to the unique boss fight, each area has their own theme, lore, quests, design and concepts. The way to the main areas will also offer several challenges as players have to beat and evade several different types of traps and obstacles.

One of the rooms will have the Demon Queen as main boss where players will fight on a big spiderweb like structure which they will have to find their way onto.

Check out some of the screenshots for the Cairn Dungeon below.

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Changes are coming to the world of Darkfall and today Aventurine released more details as to what those changes are going to be.

Sieges in Darkfall Online are being  updated and while options and settings are still being tweaked, the developers did say the new siege system will go live within a month.  New PvE dungeons are being added to all the continents within Darkfall, each continent having its own different theme.  PvP content is also being re-worked and changes will gradually be introduced leading up to the release of the new expansion.

The new patch will also fix issues within the game such tower screams, timers for the NA Sea Towers and timers for zoning in and out of dungeons.

A new creature has also been unveiled, the Imp, which is shown above and you can click it to see the full image.  Checkout the Darkfall blog for more info about the upcoming patch.

Crafty as a fox on fire, Imps are the yes-men of hell.  They have recently arrived on Agon to take their place as the diminutive and homicidal minions of the Devils. These cunning little sycophantic creatures will swarm around their masters and support them in whatever way they can.  In return the Devils will show their gratitude by occasionally not stomping one into a bloody smear.  They have been known to eat brownies, small pebbles, and generally anything that happens to be in the immediate vicinity during a feeding frenzy.