DarkFall Overview
This is sort of like a review of sorts, but more of an overview as well to give those of you who may be interested in trying Darkfall more of an idea of what this game is all about based off my own experiences with the game. I actually picked up Darkfall a year ago when it first launched, and played it very briefly before deciding that I would give the game some time to develop before returning. After playing Aion and being dissatisfied with the faction based pvp and siege warfare, I decided that open pvp games were really the only kind of MMORPG’s that I truly enjoyed. The original MMORPG which is still my favorite experience till this day has to be Lineage 2, and Darkfall shares similarities to the harsh environment of L2 by having a non-instanced world where there are no limitations as to where pvp can be engaged and whom against. For some, this may already be a discouraging feature to a video-game, and to those of you I would say that Darkfall is absolutely not the kind of game for you. However, there is a large portion of MMORPG players who enjoy pvp over every other aspect, including even story, graphics, and immersion. For those players I would say, Darkfall is well worth giving a chance.
Full Loot Open PvP
The world of Agon is a non-instanced massive world inhabited by several different races, which actually are faction based but unlike other games does not limit you to pvp’ing against only players of the opposite faction. In fact, if you do not like someone in your own faction there is nothing which will hold you back from ganking that player in the back while he or she is busy working on some mobs. Just like other pvp MMO’s however, a few of these faction ganks will end up turning your alignment towards a murderer status which bars you from NPC cities and can gimp your game play if you aren’t capable of taking care of yourself yet. So for that reason, most of my time is spent ganking players of the opposite faction which by default show up as red names when hovering over their player avatars.
Full-loot pvp means that, whatever you are carrying on you at your time of death, inventory, equipment, all of it is forfeited to whomever kills you upon death if they so happen to decide and loot you. Most of the time, they do. This may sound absolutely devastating to you, and yes sometimes it actually is depending on what you are carrying. However, unlike other games Darkfall is actually not very gear dependent and most gear can easily be replaced from my experiences so far. Keep in mind, I am not a veteran of this game and don’t have that much expensive gear yet. I have lost my fair share of equipment though, but I’ve managed to work my crafting up to a point where it would only take a half hour or so to replace that gear if need be. Not a very big deal, but it can get stressful and sometimes cause you to rage quit for a few hours. I can not explain how satisfying it is though to enact this upon someone else, and get fat loot. There is really no better pvp experience that I’ve ever encounter in a game, and it really gives meaning to going out and pvp’ing. You aren’t just killing people for no reason, you can go around hunting for equipment, resources, and literally accomplish progression in the game through pvp. This is something that many other MMO’s fail to bring to the table, and Darkfall succeeds by choosing to stick by a controversial game mechanic.
MMOFPS Game Mechanics? and the GUI.
At first, Darkfall seems very slow and clunky. When you first get into the game you will probably be immediately disappointed with everything. I personally like the graphics, but some people don’t. Some people can’t run the game at a decent FPS rate, yet I personally have a very powerful PC and run it at tweaked high settings with anti-aliasing activated at the highest resolution for a consistent 100+ FPS. The reason I am mentioning performance here, is because Darkfall’s game play mechanics are unlike other MMO’s that don’t necessarily require incredible performance to be successful. Darkfall in certain aspects can be considered an MMOFPS, and pvp comes down to twitch game play that feels a lot like playing a shooting game. I absolutely love it, although I think that melee combat is poor and the animations are terrible. If developers focused on improving this twitch game play, along with balancing other game mechanics, we could be looking at a very successful action MMORPG.
However, as it currently is the game is only mediocre. The controls are clunky and quite honestly, just bad. You end up having to bind skills to certain keys, and switching between many hot bars during pvp encounters which is difficult to get used to at first. The UI itself is ugly, and doesn’t function very well at all. Chatting is a pain because the windows are just ugly and hard to read or even notice when you get private messages. Most of the time I just turn the chat off. System messages are popping up everywhere on your screen, and all in the same ugly font, with the same bland color. What it reminds me of is an outdated website that hasn’t been able to upgrade to Web 2.0 functionality yet, and is still living in the 90’s. It’s very unfortunate, because it is these very little details that players really hold in high regard especially when they are first trying out a new game. These kind of flaws can turn players off very quickly.
To it’s credit though, Darkfall’s interface does offer certain details that many new modern MMO’s with much better looking GUI’s don’t have out of the box. From day one, players can create a clan with 2000 gold and immediately have access to their very own private in-game message boards powered by vBulletin. Not many clans actually use these boards, but it is commendable to see this actually put into practice and have it available for those clans who aren’t as web savvy as others. Also, players can look through their journals and literally get a break-down of their pvp statistics, down to minute details of who they have killed or been killed by and even their own personal win/loss records against these individual players. This is something other games just simply don’t have, and Darkfall succeeds exceptionally in this area. It would all be that much better though if the GUI was prettier, faster, and more functional.
Sieging and Property
Every MMO today tries to come off like they have a sieging system, and then most of the time from my experiences the system is either broken, doesn’t work properly, or just plain isn’t fun. Now, I am a brand new player in Darkfall myself so I haven’t experienced much of Darkfall’s end-game siege pvp. I can’t say from my own experience what this aspect of the game is like, but I can describe it and say that from what I have read the only real complaints are coming from performance due to a mass amount of players involved in the sieges, and sieging mechanics that can easily be fixed in upcoming patches.
The world of Darkfall has many different cities to be conquered, as well as hamlets which are like smaller properties for clans that aren’t strong enough to take cities I am assuming, and also villages where players can have their own houses. Aside from the houses, cities, and hamlets are conquerable, destructible, and can also be built up and improved by the players. Unlike other games that dictate a time window for sieges, Darkfall operates by allowing players to drop a siege stone which activates a siege 24 hours after the stone is dropped. So if you want to attack on Friday, you drop a stone on Thursday and you prepare for your attack in 24 hours. This in my opinion, is a lot better then dictated siege windows because it adds dynamic opportunities to occur rather than having the entirety of the game population preparing for siege time.
When comparing what I’ve heard and read about Darkfall sieging, over what I’ve experienced and played in Aion sieging, I can say with certainty that Darkfall’s system is not only better but more dynamic, and deeper in quality. About the only thing I am disappointed with, is that players can not customize their owned cities with Clan banners, NPC mercenaries, and other defensive improvements. I believe developers need to continue to build upon this system, and include more property especially for solo players and smaller groups.
The Grind, and Conclusion
But, this is an MMORPG and yes you will have to grind. There are lot’s of arguments out there that Darkfall is not a grind, while others say that it is an incredible grind. I’ve found that every MMORPG you play will have some sort of grind, some worse than others. I will say that for the most part my DF experience, which has been mostly solo play, has been consisted of grinding crafting, weapon skills, or solo ganking (which is really fun actually). The grind is pretty heavy when you are skilling up, but there are no levels and you do have access to the entire game on day one. Will you be very viable of a player on day 1? No. Not unless you have lots of support from a good clan, and you learn the game mechanics fairly quickly. Otherwise, you will spend the first few months of your game time crafting, grinding, and learning the game.
Overall, I would say that Darkfall gets a 7 out of 10, but has the potential to become a game that is much better than Aion, Age of Conan, and other games with siege warfare that claim to be pvp MMO’s. There is so much though that needs fixing in Darkfall, and unfortunately only time will tell if this game can really ever reach it’s full potential. It is already a year old, and basic things that need fixing are still lingering around, so it is questionable as to the direction the developers will take this title. I don’t regret giving the game a second swing, and I do notice the improvements made since it was launched, but Darkfall has a long road ahead of it. At the very least, it is a game that is worth your time if you enjoy MMORPG’s, you enjoy pvp, and you don’t mind putting time and effort into a game.
There is now a Darkfall trial available, along with 24 hours of newbie protection that gives you somewhat of an edge to get a feel for the game and skill up enough before you are unprotected from the games harsh environment. I would suggest forking up the $1 it costs to give the game a try, and utilize the newbie protection to get your crafting and skills up a bit so that getting ganked won’t be that big of a deal.
If you do try Darkfall, all I have left to say is; Good Luck.