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.
via mmocrunch.com
Wow. Absolutely nothing at all sounds fun about Darkfall. I am perfectly okay saying it looks terrible, sounds completely unfun, and has one of the worst UIs I’ve ever seen.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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The hard core pvp isn’t my cup of tea, but it does sound like they’ve made some progress in terms of Mob AI.
The one character per server concept is a bit off in the review though. The powergamer who wants to “go red” and then have an alternate will simply buy a second account to get around the limitation and elminate part of the “consequence” of bad behavior.
It is too bad its getting released in an “unpolished state”. There seems to be so much speculation around this premise for a game, I hate to see it launch with unrelated issues that could cause its early demise (a built-in excuse if you will). I’d rather see the sink/swim effect take place with a bit better review going in.
(and I’m hoping it does well actually, it just won’t be at the top of my playlist).
The game is a little rough. It’s releasing a little early. But I do not get where you can say it looks like crap. The game looks great when people don’t downgrade graphics for better FPS performance.
UI is clunky. Probably the largest complaint I have seen is actually the UI. But learning it is easy and it becomes simple, still horrible but simple.
And the final question is, why does it sound unfun to you?
Did you read that review? Look at the quote I pasted:
“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.”
Really? That’s an actual game mechanic?
“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.”
Can it get more unintuitive?
“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.”
No thanks, I’ve long learned that people taking the rewards I worked for = bad.
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. … 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.”
That sounds like terrible terrible mechanics. Oh, you’ll be forced to be in this ‘rogue’ status – and we’ll make it stupidly easy to accidently get in this status.
“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.”
So basically, exploitable. And unfun.
There is nothing in the game that sounds fun to me. Losing all my stuff = not fun. Dealing with clunky UI = not fun. Questing that is uninspired and not unique or special = unfun. Needing to buy reagents to cast all your spells = unfun (hate the two reagents I need in WoW).
For ME, this game couldn’t miss the mark by a larger margin. I’m sure there are is a significant amount of players who think they want this kind of game, and an even smaller amount of players who really do. We’ll see how it turns out, but it’s not my cup of tea whatsoever.
Thank you for clarifying cuppy. I just wanted to know what was going through your mind. You didn’t really say a lot.
I personally think the review is good. It is missing some information but its generally good.
The UI is very much like Planetside. Seeing that this game is also a First Person game they need to have the mechanic of switching between mouse pointer and First person mode.
When it comes to the rogue status that people take advantage of it’s expected that this will be someones impression during a beta. Seeing that it’s the PVPers from AC and UO that have been waiting for this game for 10 years that they would be the majority of people in the beta.
Questing just isn’t a major part of the game design. It’s not a leveling based game. All you get from quests are basic items and money. Seeing that there are no epic weps of ownage in the game due to the PVP orientation and item looting.
At the end of the day the players that like the safe feeling of games like WoW are not going to like a game like this. Players who have played niche mmos that are used to rulesets like this however will.
HOLY CRAP it’s UO with graphics I don’t like as much!!! :O
“Really? That’s an actual game mechanic?”
Its not all that different than staring down a spellbook until you hit level 35…
For itemization though, from what was said, it may be more about pride and perspective, tough to know without hard numbers. The claim was that most of a characters power is tied to skills, so if you’re fairly “high end”, getting killed for answering the front door and losing your gear won’t be the end of the world. That’s a huge shift from EQ/EQ2/WoW though, and I don’t fully “trust” what was said being so used to item-centric advancement.
CuppyCake, if you haven’t actually tried the UI, i would just reserve judgement until you have actually tried it, i am in beta and have tried it for myself, it’s different to everything else out there, doesn’t mean it’s bad, it works for the game, it wouldn’t work for WoW, it wouldn’t work for warhammer, but it works for Darkfall, this is mainly because during combat you need to have minimum UI interactions as possible, there are many visual cues in the game, and with a simple right MB click you have access to your full UI without having to press anything else to access your worldmap, bags and paperdoll, it’s actually extremely intuitive.
I’m not going to snipe all your points in your above post’s, but it goes without saying you are badly informed and reading into things wrongly, you obviously have some pre-conceived notions about Darkfall but you should be open minded and objective if you are going to comment on anything with any authority, especially if you are trying to run a blog about gaming and want any respect.
This is the first time i’ve been on your blog, and this is the first article i have read from you, and it seems incredibly trollish, you are quoting and sniping from another blog, in which the original author never meant anything negative in his comments about the UI, but you are twisting it into something negative, its incredibly bad form.
It doesn’t sound like you will like the game, the darkfall devs have stated many times this game is not for everyone, and it’s true, but i would recomend atleast giving it a try if your going to talk smack about it, then you could actually be a little believable and keep some integrity.
“Its not all that different than staring down a spellbook until you hit level 35…”
Which is also a bad mechanic (what is the only thing less fun than excessive downtime? Excessive downtime spent looking at a static screen). We can forgive EQ though since it was trying a lot of new things (or at least old things in new ways), and some of them were bound not to work – but if anyone put a spell book med mechanic in a modern game, they deserve what they get.
Really though what it comes down to is this:
Lets suppose 100 hypothetical people are playing the game – and those 100 people all think that they’re the ‘big bad PvPing badasses’. Well, it turns out that they can’t all win all the time. And in fact, 10, maybe 20 percent of them do win most of the time (due to more ’skill’ or more time, whatever). 60% win some of the time, and 20% of them, well they don’t win much at all. Those 20% are going to quit, and the percentages stay the same but the total number of players goes down. Repeat until nobody is left but the very most dedicated (and even a niche game needs more than this). Newbies can’t join because in a game like this there’s going to be a decent number of people whose definition of fun involves killing the weak, and the only ones weaker than them are the stream of new players.
UO was what it was because for many non-PVPers it was the only game out there assuming they wanted that play experience. So there was ‘group A’, which enjoyed UO for the world, social, and the PvE experience, and there was ‘group B’ which enjoyed UO for preying on group A. Without a population of group A which puts up with being preyed on in order to get a unique game experience, you cannot have a thriving group B since they will prey on themselves to the detriment of the game.
And that is why, despite any claims of unfinished content or lacking polish, Darkfull is fundamentally not going to be sustainable outside of a niche of a niche of dedicated players (and unless an MMO is literally unplayable, there’s always some dedicated few who will love it for what it is).
EVE is a niche game, Darkfall is destined for failure by any definition.
Well said Andrew, and I’m glad to see you still hanging around here
Miss ya!
@Killik
Killik, the blog is my opinions. I stated that by reading that review, this game is not one I’d play. Also, based on the firsthand accounts of people I trust – I wouldn’t like this game.
I agree that the original poster did a fantastic job of staying objective and stating the facts. I simply interpreted his blog post and evaluated the game’s potential FOR ME. Not once did I say “this game will fail.” I said “this is not a game I will play.” Another game I wouldn’t play is Street Fighter, not because I think it will suck but because it isn’t for me.
And no, I’m not going to try every MMO on the market and waste my cash. I’d rather read the reviews and determine if it’s something I think is worth trying. Based on the reviews and personal experiences from friends on this game, I’m skipping right over it.
You couldn’t handle DF Cuppy =P Not unless it was My Little Pony with full PVP.
Seriously though, a lot of the things written about the game that people have read about its mechanics are designed that way on purpose. They can sound bad on paper, but are actually good for the game. For those who have played UO, they will understand the clicking and draging single items in a full PVP environment. When it comes time for a large battle between guilds, the last thing you want is some loot whore guildie looting bodies when they should be fighting. This mechanic makes looting timely and forces the individual to decide if it is the best time to loot. As for sheathing your weapon/shield this is just for realism (It’s hard to take a breastplate off of some dude’s corpse with sword and shield in hand). All you have to do is press R and it becomes second nature after a few times.
As for the Right click feature it works fine with some tweaking of your key configuration (I moved it to my side button and changed Right click to sprint). If you have a 4-5 button mouse you can actually do a lot right off of there so you don’t have to move your hands around too much while in combat. This is also the reason their UI has been made simple. To be honest this UI is not much different than 80% of other UIs out there, sans WOW, which requires way too much crap to play the game. If your players spend more time tweaking and creating new addons for your UI, you probably didn’t utilize it enough to begin with. WOW = Clunky UI, DF = Simple. Simple UIs work well in PVP games hence their decision.
The Rogue System is loosely based of the UO grey system, but of course differs due to the combat mechanics. It has already been tweaked from the source listed in Cuppy’s comment above and will more than likely be tweaked after release to mitigate griefing. During beta I had no problems not going rogue unless I wanted to. You just have to pay attention to your surroundings and learn when to switch to a vertical attack so you don’t splash damage. Honestly, going rogue is no big deal.. So what, others can attack you. Just kill them too. It is a good feeling when someone tries to grief you by making you grey, only for them to realize you don’t care and kill them. Then when you have time, go to your enemy faction and hunt them until your alignment is blue again. If you are afraid to kill others because you will become a murderer, DF is probably not for you.
Questing is more than most people realize. Most people in beta did not realize how important quests are. Yes at first it is just about getting gold and items, but look at EVERY quest in WoW or every other game, that is all it is about. You can say in WOTLK their was actually some story line, but in the end it was all about doing the same thing you had already done for the past four years. There are bigger multi-day quests in the game, which WoW cannot say they have unless you include the tedious rep grind quests or boring raid quests in game.
Magic above beginner spells will all require reagents like UO. This is because magic is meant to be difficult since it is very powerful once you get into the actual schools of magic (You have to practice Lesser Magic and then Greater Magic before you can enter into different schools of magic). The great thing about this system is later expansion or patches can easily bring in new schools and since their are no classes you are not restricted. If those who play WOW find the reagents too much for them, then DF magic is not something they could handle. Magic in WOW imo is pretty much a joke compared to games out their that are actually challenging and I am glad to see Adventurine took a strong path on its magic usage. Then again as a caster, you are not limited to casting only. Most people will be a hybrid of casting, archery, and melee.
As for the graphics, I would have to agree that they are not up to par for 2009, but what boggles my mind is the steep system requirements. I have to say that the shadows, water, and sky in the game are amazing, but the terrain and buildings will need some work. It also seems like they just skimped on the textures. Hopefully that means improvement in the future. I was hoping that if they were to go the lower graphics route it was simply going to be for the fact that you can have more people on screen for larger battles. This is not the case unless you have a system that is fairly new. My i7 and GTX280 and more RAM than most systems can handle the game perfectly in 1920×1200, but my brother’s 7000 series, and pentium 4 was taking major video hits at a much lower resolution. I think the biggest mistake in DF is not going with graphics similar to WoW. I still feel this was Blizzard’s greatest idea for WoW and should be held as a standard.
The truth about PVP is very simple. If you think WoW world PVP, BGs, WG, or Arenas is PVP, then you have never really PVP’d. People can argue all they want, but WoW PVP is horrible and dumbed down to the point where anyone can do it. There will be a lot of dungeons and even raid type PVE in this game, but PVP raids are where this game will shine. I am not talking about the horrible WAR style RVR either. All I can say is if you think you are good and PVP from WAR or WOW, or you think you are the best FPS player and you think you can walk into DF and hold your own from day one, you most likely will have another thing coming. Where will you be without your epics when you decide to face the wilderness alone only to be killed by a group of players because they heard you killing that troll 300 yards away. The world is just big enough so that when you are in the middle of no where and you think you are safe by yourself, there is still a good chance someone is stalking you. People who have played WoW do no understand the need for a heightened sense of being alert. You can’t just fly above danger. I expect DF to do well at first, but I wouldn’t be surprised if 60% of their subscribers leave in the first 3-6 months because they constantly die to players and cannot compete with the level of PVP. Yeah you may die a lot in WOW, but in DF dying will mean more than spawning at the nearest grave yard and going back for more. People will eventually learn that it is foolish to carry a banks worth of junk on you that you probably only use once a week. Keep it in your bank and carry only what you need. Keeping spare suits of armor is a must. Just make sure you have enough arrows, reagents, and potions to last at least a few decent fights.
As far as saying the game is far from being finished… I completely disagree. The game has almost all of the original features in at release, which is WAY more than any other game, especially WoW. The few that are missing are actually small features (racial skills comes to mind), because Adventurine worked on their big promises first (mounted combat, cities, full scale navy, skill systems). The game does need polish though and in some places clarity in game. I wouldn’t say the game has a much higher learning curve, but for those who are used to having their hands held all the way to level 80, expect to think for yourself for a change or join the clueless mass of people who spam chat all day asking for help because they cannot help themselves. There will be no guides telling you how to kill raid bosses, because your raids will be on player cities. The game is also very stable. In beta I never once crashed from a client problem. I expect everything to be smooth in a decent time after release.
So yeah, the game is not for everyone. I have been following this game for four years and I could have told Cuppy from day one she wouldn’t like this game. I also could say that for many others. But as with anything else, make the decision for yourself. if you want to try it, just try it. I think most people will know with in a month if this is the game for them. It only took me three days to realize WAR was horrible, I think the same will be for DF to many players. Coming from 12 years of MMOs (Not including MUDs and such) with a good amount of that playing EQ and its infinite clones, I can easily say that a sandbox full PVP game is long over due. Maybe the game will tank in a year, but it will be nice to finally play a game with real challenge and with real end game PVP unlike AoC. And if all else fails I will move on to http://www.mortalonline.com