We Wonder About: Darkfall
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MMO players who prefer full-scale PvP have not had many games to call their own for awhile now. On several gaming websites one can read posts lamenting the current crop of fantasy based MMOs and their state of “carebear” PvP. Many insist the PvP golden age came and went with Ultima OnlineUltima Online reviews
, never to be seen again. Others keep their hopes up and are anxious for pending releases such as Age Of ConanAge of Conan reviews or WARwar reviews
to satiate their thirst for action.
However, one game in development remains an enigma, considered by some to be the holy grail and savior of “real PVP” and by others to be simply a dream and nothing more than vaporware.
That game is Darkfall.
Darkfall began its development way back in August of 2001 by a little company in Norway called “Razorwax” (later to be integrated into Greece based “Aventurine S.A.”). To put that in perspective, just a few months prior had seen the cancellation of plans for Ultima Online 2, and most Americans still didn’t know who Osama bin Laden was.
Six long years and through it all there have been beta announcements, beta signups, beta announcement retractions – and the last few years, save for a few screenshots here and there, Darkfall has all but fallen off of the mainstream radar.
However, with over 47 thousand members signed up on the official Darkfall forums, it’s clear that gamers are still excited about the game’s promise.
What makes it special? Features like unrestricted PvP, full-looting of players, and skill-based progression (rather than levels or classes) are definitely not new, but haven’t been seen in a mainstream fantasy genre title in years. The prospect of owning and maintaining a city, “empire-building”, and warring with other guilds over resources have “hardcore” PvP players excited. Add to that nearly all items and weapons being player created, player ships, housing (the list goes on and on), and Darkfall begins to sound like a dream for PvP and sandbox lovers alike.
But could the dream be too good to be true?
Six years in development is a long time, even for a small team of developers. While this fact alone shouldn’t be cause for alarm, the curiously small amount of real updates and information about the game could be. Not only that, but developing a game costs money – developers have to eat! And six years is an eternity without a product.
Beyond that, assuming Aventurine has a successful beta phase and finally releases Darkfall, will it even prove financially successful? Darkfall certainly has its following, and EVE OnlineEve Online reviews has proven that there is a niche market for PvP full-loot games. But this niche is a small percentage of potential customers, will it be big enough to be profitable?
Will the company be able to survive after release? Using EVE Online as a comparison once again, it took the game four years of continuous updates to get to the point they are now. Their growth has been stable, but very slow. It’s a lot of money to keep a development company running for four years with a live game.
Even with the long years of development and beta phase push-backs, there is hope for the future. The large guild “Lords Of Death” happened to have one of its members, “Asp”, in the middle of a business trip through Europe. His route had him near Greece, and improbably enough Aventurine was contacted and Asp was able to visit with the developers and even play a live demo of the game. Although it was reportedly an older build (the current build was down), this news had internet forums abuzz and new excitement for Darkfall was generated.
Asp seemed genuinely excited about the game. A write-up of his visit was posted on the Lords Of Death website (subsequently pasted all over) and in it he said, “Frankly, based on the demo I played, I felt I could put up with a heck of a lot of issues just to begin playing this thing as soon as possible. IT LOOKED AND PLAYED THAT GOOD!”
Asp’s report would make it seem that beta shouldn’t be very far off. So what is holding it back? In the end, it could be any number of things, and certainly Aventurine is free to promote its product however they wish.
But Darkfall remains a mystery, 47 thousand forum members or not, and probably won’t be taken very seriously until some sort of beta phase alleviates gamer doubts in a genre that has suffered more than its share of disappointments.
As of publishing time, The MMO Gamer had not received any responses to emails sent to Darkfall developers Aventurine S.A.
Eh, UO’s original PVP was good for a handfull of sadists and bad for everyone else. My ex girlfriend began and ended her interest in MMOs when she tried UO and was chain-ganked by a higher level character and could not get any assistance from other players.
May that crap never return.
You, sir, and your ex girlfriend are apparently not the audience.
I do hope, deep in the fuzziest warmest place in my heart, that was me that scarred both of you for life.
I think a player run game with some unrestricted PvP would definitely be welcomed by a good number of people. But, as I have been for a couple of years, I’m far from convinced Darkfall is anything more than vaporware.
Bob
Yeah, a good number of people who’ll have nobody to pick on after three months. Let’s add permadeath to FPS games while we’re acting hardcore. We can turn around in the drivers seats of our cars and turn the wheel with our mighty flexing ass cheeks too. Hard. Core.
Trammel saved UO whether you want to believe it or not.
TO elfwithmirrorshadeeyes
YOu are obviously an idiotic carebear with bad taste. Notice that Post-Trammel was UO’s FIRST decline in subscriptions since its release. Also Trammel ended up killing UO for a majority of gamers. Go play World Of Warcraftw ith you no risk no reward systems and leave the good games alone.
Also most Darkfall forum posters are anti-permadeath so stick that. After three months we’ll make sure to eradicate everyone like you so that the game will be better.
“As of publishing time, The MMO Gamer had not received any responses to emails sent to Darkfall developers Adventurine S.A.”
Maybe they haven’t replied because you are sending e-mails to the wrong people. It is Aventurine, thats without a ‘d’.
Hi kasker,
Thanks for pointing out the typo. However, the line you quoted was the only place where that unfortunate misspelling occured, the addresses we have sent emails to were to the right people at the right company, everything correctly spelled.
- Siam
Longest running vaporware ever..
The most this project has ever released since 2001 are a few alpha videos and some screenshots showing the most basic stuff you can have.
I think Darkfall would have enough players if it came out. I play Shadowbane, which is a full-scale pvp game with player economy and city building. Shadowbane has its problems but tons of people still play the game and its been 6 or so years since it came out.
Just about everyone that plays Shadowbane has their fingers crossed for Darkfall to come out. Whether people believe it will or not, everyone has a little bit of hope.
If you look around on the Darkfall forums to, a lot of those guilds are from Shadowbane (LOD was once there too). There are thousands more where they came from.
The genious of UO was its simplicity. Its easy to balance class/skill PvP mechanics when your not juggling 15 different classes, 7 races, 10 stats/attributes and “I Win” weapons and armor that glow brighter than the Vegas strip.
Since the fall of UO (which coincidently came after the new classes and “I Win” items were introduced)new MMORPGs have hit and missed on the key factors that made UO such a great PvP game. They have never seemed to put it all together. Darkfall seems to have the right idea….lets hope it comes to reality.
Unfortunately, as it was mentioned in the article….can the customer base support it? MMORPG gamers are no longer a niche of 20-40 year olds who are more concerned with content over itemization and cosmetics. While the the more mature MMORPG gamers were playing UO, the kids were playing console games. The easy to use interface and sparkling/glowing/shining items have tapped into a huge player base that makes up the lions share of MMORPG gamers. It will be tough convincing people to stick with a game where items do not define your uberness and are common enough to justify a full loot system.
I hope it all works out….I’m tierd of playing WOW & pre-pub 16 UO private servers.
Lets start a collection and when we hit $5 million we can donate it to them so we can finally get some results.
How ’bout we raise $5,000,000 and donate it to support some real-world issues such as environmental resuscitation, economic stability, and alleviation of regional famine so we can finally get some real-world results?
LOL @ “Trammel saved UO”… that was one of the worst decisions ever.
Darkfall is coming.
Be prepared.
Beta sign-ups and 20 min video. Looks like Aventurine is finally coming out of its shell. hehehehehehahahaha!
I owned everyone on Chesapeake and if this game comes out I will own everyone on it too. DARKFALL HASN’T EVEN COME OUT YET AND I STARTED ALREADY HAH, HOLD THAT!
elfwithmirrorshadeeyes, “Trammel saved UO”
You are a moron. I do hope that you will never play Darkfall. UO was ruined by people like you. Trammel destroyed UO and it showed by their falling numbers of subscriptions ever since Trammel was introduced.
“Trammel saved UO”
These guys are right people like you ruined UO .
Luckily these days the market is swamped with mmo titles designed around the vast mediocre care bear comunity . We can make darkfall our own ….. you never know some of the crowd that ruined UO might even realise what they have been missing all these years .
MMO gamer should definetley take a look at DF again .
What the hell is chesapeke? I’ll bust your head in noobface. No amount of hotkeys or point and click attacks will save you ShaoPai.
I loved Shadowbane and UO. This game sounds like the best from both. If its half as good as the details make it out to be, then I’ll be there.
This game is Vaporware for sure, 7 years in production and running…..? I bet at the end of the year they do what they have been doing for the past 7 years…..delay the game some more. I bet with all the adds they have on their websites they are making money from you rtards visiting their site dreaming about a game that will never be released since they make more money that way.
WHY CANT WE BE FRIENDS? WHY CANT WE BE FRIENDS? WHY CANT WE BE FRIENDS? WHY CANT WE BE FRIENDS!?!
also, trolls r tards. and ppl claiming vaporware and bashing fanboys… maybe not on this particular thread, but all over. realise what you are doing. you bash fanboys or “believers” because they have hope in this game?
secondly, you chant vaporware to people who believe the game is not vaporware… if we, for a moment, accept the idea the game is vaporware, then who is more retarded? those who think the game is real (even though no evidence is there to disprove the vids and screenshots and reviews and such and such), or would the people arguing against the so called retards be more retarded?
also, wouldnt the people arguing with retards look even more retarded if the people who are supposed to be retards are only retards in ur eyes cuz you dont agree with their belief?
what im trying to get at, people claiming vaporware, and trolls, and carebears, and WOW nubs, GTFO, all ur doing is making urself look foolish and retarded. retarded for the reason is posted above, and foolish for trying to change people beliefs in whether a game is real/good or not.
i have a 100% seriouse question for you, why are you even here? like, in a place where DF is talked about if you dont think DF is real/good? are you bored? feeling threatened?
Hahahah “trammel saved UO” your obviously a trammy so don’t bother with darkfall, its Felucca based buddy no gaurds.. your fucked.
i also wish darkfall has a custom traveling system like UO did, mark almost anywhre you want and recall to it, easy n simple. no going to flight masters, sitting on an animated bird for a while. fuck that. BTW dont play warhammer its WoW with a pvp twist lack of pve content and horrible gear that you cant cutomly play your class meaning if im a tank i only get tank gear i cant chose to get crit gear. LAME WoW is more geared based yes, but im sure soooo many ppl cant wait for darkfall.
ANYONE IN DARKFALL BETA POST IT ON YOUTUBE. THANKS~~
[...] its release date on the official forums as January 22nd 2009. We looked into Darkfall Online in a previous article. January 22nd 2009 Launch Date Announced for Darkfall [...]
this game sounds great i cant wait to play
its should to come out today
I believe the latest news is that the release has been pushed forward to February.
well that sucks
Big misconception just because a game has Full Loot and PvP does not mean it is for all playtypes. The game has vast ammounts of PvE and non PvP element. people do not understand that the game will suit all player types.
I heard of this game very recently and am hopeful that it is a reality and is released soon. I am a bit fearful that it may not be because Darkfall’s web page never goes to the links I desire to view most, such as beta testing sign up. I also went as far as stopping by GameStop and a few other small game stores to check if I could pre-order it. Not only can I not pre-order, it is not in there data base as an existing game so they could at least tell me the release date. I am hopeful because the game sounds amazing, but fearful because it is very unlikely that a game that hits the market in less than a month, if the latest release date holds, would be off the radar to those we would have to go through to purchase it. If it doesn’t come to be though I hope some other game company sees the demand for a game that plays this way and jumps on it fast.
I been sifting thru bullshit all day and what I came up with is release date Feb. 25th 2009. Its an EU release that NA players can do that direct 2 drive bullshit and play on the EU servers. They don’t have no clue when they’re gonna release it in NA and can’t say whether or not our toons will transfer.
As far as the game goes I’m tired of collect five goblin balls and get 300xp. If I can do whatever I want and beat ur ass for having a problem with it then it sounds like fun to me.
it just sounds fun to me cus it won’t be a point and click game
i have been waiting for a non point and click gunless mmo game
and “don’t have no clue” is a double negative so your saying that they do have a clue
Isal said “people do not understand that the game will suit all player types.”
god i hope not. the amount of people playing mmorpgs today are so vast that it is imposible to suit all players. full loot pvp will make some people run away faster then I did from WAR, but others will love it.
whats important is that the devs clearly state thier intentions whit a game and stick to it. that means not being afraid to lose some players after a month or two because it turns out the game was not for them.
This is my great hope: that the amount of players in the mmorpg genre is large enough to allow games targeting only a minority to be financially viable. that is the only way this genre is going to move forward and not get stuck in a “generic WOW type game nr 88″ mode.
darkfall certainly looks promising and im going to give it a try, i may or may not like it, but i do hope that its a succes.
Darkfall is simple and fun no leveling ive played lots of mmorpg's because they are awsome for a while at the end it isnt fun anymore its more like a full time job.My favorite games that are upcoming=
Darkfall
Diablo3
The Elder Scrolls 5
Guildwars 2
These games are a bit of my taste,And its good old fun gw maybe a bit wowish but its stil fun.
[...] Long-claimed as vaporware by the internet masses, Darkfall actually looks like it is going to release in just a matter of days. Many, many pushbacks, and it’s seven years of development had many people wondering if it was every going to see the light of day. Well, Aventurine muscled through all the doubt, and they did it in their own way, and kept a veil of secrecy around their game, that forbid anyone from even mentioning they were Beta testing the game (paranoid much). [...]
The game Darkfall is released, and u can't just go to a store and get a copy. In order to get the game its free for download on the darkfall website (you might have to find the link in the forums but still) you have to sign up on the website for your account and buy the game from there, a code will be sent to your e-mail then u enter the code and you are good to go. I personally can't wait till i finally am able to buy a copy myself, there has been a tremendous amount of people trying to buy the game right now, so much that they don't have enough server space at the moment to accommodate everyone. I doubt Darkfall will be vaporware but we shall see in a following days.
i just want a more player skill based game instead of those crappy all computer skill and click speed based ones (most of the point and click games/mmos)
Jokes on you, the games out now, and it's freagin' awesome.
Indeed. It's a great PvP game… I am glad it finally came out. It's already great and it can only get better.
If the game was free there was no private server makeing and all that Other SHIT!!!!!