Avian Gamers Network

What is Darkfall? Darkfall is a Next Generation online roleplaying game developed by Razorwax AS.

What is an online roleplaying game? An online roleplaying game is a game that is played over the internet, in a world inhabited by thousands of real people. Everyone logs in from their computers all over the world and meet up in a fantasy world for adventure and fun.

What do you mean by Next Generation? By Next Generation we mean that Darkfall was inspired by the pioneers of online roleplaying games, such as Ultima Online, Everquest and Asherons Call, but has advanced features and technology that is never before seen in online games, and we are confident that Darkfall will advance the genre further.

What is the setting of Darkfall? Darkfall has all the features of its predecessors, meaning hundreds of combat skills/trade skills, hundreds of spells, hundreds of different monsters to kill, hundreds of dungeons, more magical items than you can shake a battleaxe at, vast wilderness, player owned houses and castles, and everything you expect from an online roleplaying game. Darkfall is highly geared towards player vs. player combat, and especially towards racial wars and player-run clans conquering city states owned by other player-run clans. You can read more about conquest here.

Racial wars? Yes. Darkfall has six different main character races: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Mahirim, Orks and Alfar. Each race has different political standings with the other races. The Elves are at peace with Dwarves and Humans, but are wary of Mahirim, and are at war with the Orks. Everyone hates the Alfar, and the Alfar hate everyone. In effecst this means that Elven players may travel to Dwarven and Human cities without having any problems with the city guards, and may buy and sell in stores. If an Elven player traveled to an Orkish city, he would be killed on sight, both by city guards and other players. In Alfar cities, everyone gets killed anyway.

So you have only six races? Well yes and no. We have some pretty neat features when it comes to races. We will announce these at a later date.

Where can I read about the different races? Read about the different races of Darkfall here.

Can I play all races on the same account? No. This is something we have discussed at length within Razorwax, and we believe that there would be too much unwanted spying going on: if you play an Alfar, for example, you may log on your Elf scout just to check if the Elven town of Charybdis is well defended at the moment or not.

I have to be in a clan? Not at all. Darkfall can be played any way you want. If you want to get involved in conquest, wars and ruling kingdoms, you join a clan, or get together with some friends and start your own. If you just want to be a lone adventurer, hunting for treasure, magical items and fame, you just go out and do it. You can even be a mercenary, selling your sword arm to the highest bidder, or a merchant, setting up caravans and shops in different cities, buying high quality hides from Mahirim hunters, and selling them for top prices at Human cities. You can even hook up with a few friends and be pirates, sailing your galleon around, plundering merchant ships and other pirates, or a Dwarven blacksmith, crafting mighty magical weapons and armor, or maybe a farmer producing rare herbs and spell reagents that you can sell in the cities. The possibilities are endless.

Will it be possible to start a multi-race Clan? Yes. Clans with a mix of say humans, elves and dwarves will be common in Darkfall, or mixes of Orks and Mahirim. Alfar tend to not mix with other races at all.

Remember that human NPC hirelings, such as guards and vendors, will not tolerate Orks and Alfar players, and may attack them on sight, even though they are in the same Clan. In Alfar towns, NPC guards will attack anything not Alfar. The same goes for alignment, so an evil Clan will have to recruit evil NPC hirelings only.

There will most certainly be Clans in Darkfall with players from all races. We predict that this will be small evil player killer Clans, that will set up their Clan headquarters in remote locations, and not get involved in city conquest or empire building at all, since it will be almost impossible for these Clans to recruit NPC hirelings to help defend their cities, and run their shops. And who knows, maybe a strong Clan with a mix of all races may be able to run their cities, and conquer new territories without the help of NPC hirelings. It will be extremely hard, but it is possible in theory

Will you have character classes and levels in Darkfall? No. Darkfall has no traditional character classes, and no levels. Our character advancement system is 100% skill based, meaning you learn a new skill or spell from an NPC or another player (yes, neat huh?) and this skill or spell is raised by being used. In effect this means that if you purchase the skill Swordsmanship from an NPC or another player, it is raised by wielding a sword, and fighting monsters or players with it.

We wanted to give the players total control of what and how they want to play. Customize your own character to suit your playing style best, without traditional templates to limit your character. If you want to be an axe wielding dwarven fighter you simply pick up the Axe skill, Axe Mastery, Parry, Dodge, Cleave and other linked skills. If you later decide that some magic would be nice as support, you pick up a few magic skills and spells as well. Same goes for trade skills. Want to be able to create weapons? Pick up Smithing and Weapon Crafting.

Want to make clothing when you are tired of battle? Pick up Tailoring. No need to reroll your character. There is no way to "gimp" your character by picking the "wrong" skills or spells.

Get what you want, play as you want.

That being said - We do have something called Prestige classes, like Paladins, Warlocks, Assasins etc.

So I can learn any skill or spell? Almost. Some skills and spells are race specific, meaning you can not learn them unless you are of the appropriate race. The races also have limits on what they can and cant learn. The dwarves for instance, are better at melee fighting than they are at magic, so they can master some awesome melee techniques, but they can not learn some of the most advanced spells. Dwarves are however the best smiths in the world, so they can make magical armor that is alot better than those smiths of other races make. This somewhat makes up for them being a little weak at actual spellcasting.

We also has some special skills and spells for the prestige classes that members of the appropriate prestige class can learn.

So what are Prestigue Classes? Prestigue Classes are special classes, such as Paladin, Assasin, Gladiator, Enchanter, etc. These classes are totally optional, and if you dont want to, you dont ever have to pick a class for your character. Picking a Prestigue Class will in most cases give you a few special skills, maybe even a few special spells belonging to this particular Prestigue Class. Paladins for instance, gain the ability to Lay-Hands (instant heal) once every day. Some Prestigue Classes will give you real good bonuses, others may only have minor bonuses and a cool sounding name. A general rule however, is that the more bonuses you get, the more tradeoffs there are. Druids for instance, may never use metal armor after they are initiated into Druidhood. Paladins have to give half of their earnings to their church, etc.

Prestigue Classes may be interesting to some players, and some classes may give you an extra reason to roleplay, or maybe give you an edge as a PvPer, or as a player smith. We can promise you alot of interesting Prestigue Classes to try out.

Picking a Prestigue Class is not final - you can change class later, but this carries some minor penalties, such as a wait period.

The easy route would have been to make picking a Prestigue Class final, but we want to keep Darkfall as open ended as possible.

Do you have skill caps? Yes. Skills start at 1 and can be raised to 100.

How many spells and skills will Darkfall have? As many as we can possibly add before retail. We currently have about 300 skills and 200 spells designed on paper, but we are hoping to get at least 500 skills and 500 spells in there before retail.

Why so many spells and skills? Because we want to make combat, spellcasting, trade and item creation as interesting as possible. We want every player to have their own personal set of favourite spells and skills, so no combat situation is the same. Obviously there will be certain skill and spell combinations that work better than others in combat, but hopefully as many as possible, so at least a certain level of individual player skill can shine through, unlike other games we do not want to mention by name (but that we still love to play).

Can players make magical items? Yes. Darkfall features an extremely sophisticated item creator, that will enable players to create powerful items, such as weapons, jewelry, armor, wands, potions, food and more. We have invested alot of time and design resources into making the ultimate player based economy, so players that enjoy making a living as a trader, creator of quality weapons, amazing potions, or powerful magical items will truly enjoy Darkfall, and find a almost limitless item creator system never before seen in any MMORPG.

How do I gain new spells and skills? Most spells and skills can be purchased from NPCs, and they will teach you the basics of the particular skill or spell, so you can start using it and training it. Some NPCs may ask you to help them perform certain quests before they are willing to teach you special spells and skills.

What is your spell system like? We dont want to get into too much detail at this early stage, but spells will be divided into several different schools of magic: Lesser Magic, Greater Magic, Element of Fire, Element of Earth, Element of Water, Element of Air, Witchcraft, Spellsinging, Necromancy, Wild Magic, Arcane Magic and Ritual Magic. In addition there are some special spells that do not fit directly into any school of magic, such as racial specialty spells.

Can I cast spells while wearing armor? Yes. However, your casting time (the time it takes to actually cast the spell) will increase significantly if you are wearing heavy armor. So while it takes only 2 seconds for a player wearing a robe to cast a spell, it may take as long as 5 seconds for a player in a full platemail to cast the exact same spell. There is also a slighly increased chance of botching a spell if you are wearing heavy armor.

Will wearing armor affect running and swimming speed? Yes. If you are wearing heavy armor, you will run and swim slightly slower than if you are wearing no armor at all.

So why should I wear heavy armor at all? If you are wearing heavy armor, you will be harder to hit than if you are wearing no armor. Armor will also absorb some damage from swords, arrows and even spells. So there are tradeoffs involved here. You sacrifice movement speed and casting time (the time it takes to cast a spell), for getting hit less often, and for less damage.

How are you going to handle Player Killing? Anyone can attack anyone. In fact we encourage you to seek out and kill enemies of your race and your clan. However, it is up to each kingdom to set the rules of their borders. The different kingdoms have NPC guards, that have orders given to them by the player kings and lords. For example, in the city state of Midheim, controlled by the player clan Black Rose, it is illegal to steal and attack players of neutral and good alignment. Evil characters are not allowed into the city, in addition to members of the Keepers of Chaos clan, members of The Mercs and members of the House of Chaos clan. Guards will attack violators on sight, and all inhabitants of the city are encouraged to do the same. (We may add a feature to have guards Kill On Sight individual players too).

Well how am I gonna keep track of all different cities laws? You will find all the information you need on the political map. Including who controls the different city states/kingdoms/fiefs, their laws and who they kill on sight.

So you have an alignment in Darkfall? Yes. You start out with a neutral alignment, and based on your actions, this alignment changes. Being regarded by others as evil is easy, just kill someone totally unprovoked, and voila, you are evil, and will be killed on sight by most guards, clans and players. Changing your alignment towards good is a long and hard road, but once you get there, you will have the respect of all other neutral and good players, probably even the evil players.

Don't you fear that out of control player killers will ruin the game? No. Being a random player killer of evil alignment is definately possible, but also an extremely hard career. You will have enemies everywhere, and will have a hard time finding a safe city to sell/buy in. Also keep in mind that Darkfall is a very harsh world, deep into the dark ages and then some. This is a place were people will kill you if they get half a chance, loot you, take your equipment, and then brag about it to their friends. If you find it hard to get by on your own, join a clan, and you have instant protection, friends and allies. Grow strong, and go out and punish those that have done you wrong.

Remember that people can kill you, but you can also kill them. It goes both ways. Someone being rude, and refuse to leave you alone? Kill them. Someone stealing from you? Kill them. Someone camping your favourite part of the woods? Kill them.

We are not saying killing people is nice, a good idea, or even legal - we are just trying to prepare everyone for a really great game - a game were YOU decide what you want to do, and how you will interact with other people.

So what if a good clanis at war with another good clan? Once the clans have declared war on each other, no alignment adjustments will occur due to your actions towards members of the clan you are at war with.

Will Darkfall have safe zones? There wont be any traditional safe zones as seen in other games, were you cant attack anyone just because you entered a safe zone. However, a town owned by your Clan should be pretty safe, as long as your Clan has hired some strong NPC guards, and/or you have a few Clan friends hanging around. We do however expect that hostile Clans may launch small skirmish attacks on your city, and try to take out a few NPC guards, merchants or other players. Basically just to weaken the town defenses, terrorize its player inhabitants, and to hurt the defending Clans economy. NPC guards are expensive to hire, and the more often they die, the higher they consider the risk of guarding this particular city, and they will demand higher wages for their services. Re-equipping looted guards will also take its toll from the defending Clans battlechest.

Can you fight in cities? Yes you can fight wherever you want. No safe zones.

Darkfall looks great, but i dont like PvP, can I play anyway? This game is geared towards the PvP market, so you may find Darkfall a bit too harsh for you. That being said, we are aiming at having more useful tradeskills than any released MMORPG to this date, so you may find something of interest to you in Darkfall despite all the PvP action. Most Clans will need a large range of player smiths, farmers, tailors, hunters, fishermen, alchemists, miners, etc., and they will offer relatively safe cities and good accommodations for those willing to spend time crafting items, or providing supplies for the Clan. In theory you could play Darkfall for a year, and never have to take part in any PvP as long as you are careful, and dont venture too far into dangerous territories. Also remember that the Darkfall world is absolutely huge, with hundreds of small islands scattered all over the world. Nothing is preventing you from finding a hard to reach, hard to find little spot of the world, set up a house, and live in peace with a few friends, hunting in the nearby woods, or adventuring into the local dungeons without seeing other players for weeks at a time.

Darkfall can be experienced any way you prefer. We are just making the game - you play it.

Will Darkfall Have player owned houses? Definately. Players will be able to set up houses of various sizes and design, ranging from small cottages to huge castles and citadels.

Can I design my own house? Yes. [more info to come]

Will Darkfall have universal banks? Most probably. It will be tested in alpha and beta. We like the idea that if you deposit a longsword in a bank, you have to go back to the exact same bank to withdraw it. However this might prove too annoying in the long run, and as with everything else, we have to consider gameplay issues vs. realism.

Can you walk through other players in Darkfall? No, so blocking entrances etc will be a viable pvp tactic. It is possible to push players and monsters out of the way though, so this tactic can be countered.

Can I have pets or NPC hirelings in Darkfall? Yes. You can have pets and NPC hirelings in Darkfall, ranging from tamed animals and monsters, to summoned skeletons, charmed animals and monsters, hired NPC merchants, hired NPC guards, etc.

What can my NPC hirelings do? NPC hirelings can follow you around and fight with you, they can carry your loot, they can perform skills and spells to aid you, etc. NPC hirelings can do pretty much everything that player friends can do. In addition, NPC hirelings can be given advanced orders such as patrolling your city, looking for enemies, criminals and thieves. They can be a vendor in your shop that you have set up, they can mine for minerals in a mine, they can go out into the forest and chop wood for you, or stand on the banks of a river, fishing for you all day.

Can I have more than one NPC hireling? Yes. You can have several NPC hirelings under your command at all times. The maximum number of NPC hirelings you can have under your command is limited by several leadership and command skills.

How do I tell my NPC hirelings what to do? You can either give an NPC hireling a direct one-time order, such as "heal me", or you can set up a more permanent chain of orders, through an advanced NPC hireling interface in Darkfall. This advanced interface can tell the NPC hireling to heal you every time your health goes below say 10% of your max health, and cast invisibility on you and herself if enemies comes running at you. Obviously the NPC hireling has to have the matching skills and spells to perform these actions.

NPC hirelings have skills and spells like players, and the more skills or spells an NPC hireling has, and the better skill and spell levels she has, the more gold will she require for her services.

Can I survive in Darkfall without learning magic? Absolutely. You can be extremely successful in Darkfall doing only tradeskills and being good at diplomatics and politics. Start a Clan, or hire some NPC hirelings, and let others do the killing and dirty work for you.

Can I be successful in PVP without learning magic? We are balancing magic and melee/archery skills so that you can compete even if you choose not to learn magic. Darkfall is a magical world though, so if you are hell-bent on not picking up any magic skills or spells, you may have to rely on magical items, potions or scrolls to aid you in PVP. But it will definately be possible.

The most successful 1vs1 PVPers in Darkfall will probably know a good amount of both melee, stealth and magical skills, and use both defensive and offensive magic to win fights. In Clan wars, teams with a healthy mix of wizards, warriors, archers, thieves and priests will probably dominate, as long as they are well coordinated and trained. But dont forget all the tradesmen, farmers, bakers, miners etc in the Clans city, stocking up supplies of spell reagents, gold, weapons, potions, armor etc to help your Clan win the war in the long run. The fighting bit is only part of what it will take for a Clan to dominate in Darkfall.

What effect will eating or not eating have on my character? We dont want to add too many mundane everyday issues to Darkfall. However we do think that eating or not should have some influence on your character. This means that if you are absolutely starving, your stats and skills will take a small penalty, and you will regenerate hitpoints, stamina and mana slightly slower than if you werent starving. Nothing big – you cant die from hunger - just enough for it to make sense to have some food in your backpack.

We have tradeskills such as farming, setting snares and hunting animals, and we are serious about having useful tradeskills in Darkfall. Therefore eating is in the game, and players that enjoy farming, setting traps, baking, cooking, fishing, hunting, etc. can sell their wares to other players and actually be useful to others.

Will you have permanent character death? No. This is a very bad idea.

Will you have character aging? No. This is almost as bad as permanent death.

What camera view will Darkfall have? Darkfall will have a first-person camera view. Probably the most debated issue in our team, with strong points both for and against. We settled for first-person view because we believe this view gives the most immersed gaming experience, the most nerve wrecking combat situations, and the most beautiful view of our landscape and dungeons. o.O

Counterstrike, Quake and Unreal work pretty well yea? Oh and RPG games with first-person views that work great: Arena, Daggerfall, Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex.

Will Darkfall feature night/day cycles? Absolutely. The sun comes up in the morning, and goes down in the evening just like in real life. The exact timecycle is not set yet, but the current total night/day cycle is about 4 hours long.

Will Darkfall feature weather effects? Yes. Expect realistic weather effects, such as rain, snow, wind blowing in the trees, wind blowing in the grass on the ground, thunder and lightning.

Will Darkfall have "zones"? No. Darkfall will not have "zones" and zone loading as seen in other MMORPGs when traveling in the huge Darkfall World. There will be a short loading pause when entering dungeons though.

How will you prevent cheating and hacks? Darkfall was developed with preventing and detecting cheating and hacking in mind from day one.

We are not going to tell you exactly how we will prevent and detect cheating and hacking, but rest assured that cheaters and hackers will be found and dealt with.

How will you punish cheaters and hackers? Cheaters and hackers will be banned from the game, and their characters will be deleted.

How much will I have to pay to play Darkfall? We have no idea yet, probably the same as other MMORPGs on the market - $50 for the CD, first month free, then $10 each month. We'll see. Obviously it would be cool to give the game away for free, but we got bills to pay

How about system requirements? The alpha engine runs on a PIII 800mzh, with 256mb RAM and a Gforce 2 card. Obviously the retail version will be optimized alot, but this is a very demanding game. We are just not sure what system we should recommend just yet. Minimum internet connection? It should work with a 56k modem, but we obviously recommend DSL or Cable

Will Darkfall support different gaming platforms? Darkfall is primarily developed for the PC. It is unlikely that we will support other platforms, and at least not till after the PC version is out, and a proven success. An Xbox version is possible, but not planned. Darkfall for Mac or Linux is highly unlikely.

Darkfall Developer Journal #5: Under The Hood
Article by Tasos Flambouras, Associate Producer of Darkfall

This document is a gameplay document from the first Darkfall demo from last year. This was a very limited version which we put together whose purpose was to demonstrate functionality and to give a clinical glimpse at what the game is supposed to look and feel like. It was also used as a war server where we tested PvP. Even though it wasn't meant for fun, everyone, including us, seemed to have a blast playing it.

Since we're done with the demo, and we've moved to the next stage, I thought you might find the document interesting to check out. Giving a look under the hood is usually a bad idea, but we'll take our chances.

- Tasos Flambouras, Associate Producer of Darkfall
Darkfall Limited Demo Server Gameplay Document

[Removed legal disclaimers]

Disclaimers

* Darkfall demo is pre-beta software and has not passed Aventurine's quality assurance program. Nothing has been finalized and performance should not be taken to be indicative of the final release of Darkfall.
* Darkfall demo is a limited in functionality and features version of the game.
* Darkfall demo is in debug mode.
* The graphics setting is set to default. (geforce 4, pixel shader 1.1, vertex shader 1.1) Higher graphics settings cannot be enabled prior to optimization.
* Characters used in this demo are using a default skill and attribute setting that is not balanced or optimized.
* Weapon reach and radius is not optimized.
* Character movement, speed, attack speed, rate of turn etc. are subject to balancing and optimization based on testing.
* Animations are not complete or finalized in the demo.
* Textures: many are temporary and will be changed or updated.
* Effects like particles, blood effects etc. are placeholders and will be changed or updated
* Terrain textures are being updated and issues like the overlay noise that stretches on vertical surfaces will be resolved.
* Spawning effects are missing.
* Water effects are missing and water appearance is temporary and will be upgraded.
* Sounds are temporary placeholders. Final Darkfall sounds are in the process of being completed.
* AI behaviors have not been optimized in the demo and exist only for testing and demonstration purposes.
* Quests in the demo are placeholders and exist to test functionality.

Features Present in the Demo

* Four of Darkfall's six character races to select from (male and female)
* Basic character creator functionality
* Character dressing system
* A variety of weapons and armors
* Player vs. Player combat functionality
* Two Monster AI types complete with weapon /dressing functionality and spell casting ability.
* Collision detection on characters
* Spells and skills
* Ranged weapon attacks
* Player spawnable assets (mounts, cannons, ships)
* Three of Darkfall's five racial mounts
* Mounted combat
* Two of Darkfall's ship types
* Basic Naval combat functionality
* Cannons
* Jumping- Sprinting- Climbing -Swimming
* Vendors
* Basic quest functionality
* Basic crafting functionality
[li]Basic Environmental system functionality

Starting Out

Character creator

1. Character Race selection screen: Select a race for your character between the four (4) available in the demo using the arrows to cycle between them. Once you've made your selection, click "Next" to continue
2. Gender selection screen: Choose the gender of the character using the arrows to cycle between "Male" and "Female". Click on "Next".
3. Character Appearance Screen: Personalize your character's appearance by selecting the facial characteristics of your choice. When done, click on "Next".
4. Character Naming Screen: Type in a first and last name for your character and click on "Next" to continue.
5. Character Attribute Screen: Allocate points (20) to your character's attributes and click "next". This is a placeholder; the demo characters have a default set of attributes.
6. Character Skill Allocation Screen: Allocate specialization skill points and click "Next". This is a placeholder; the demo characters have a default set of skills.
7. Starting and Racial Spell selection Screen: Select your starting spells and racial spells and click "Next". This feature is disabled in the Darkfall demo.
8. Spawn Point Selection Screen: Choose your starting point on the map and click "Next". This feature is disabled in the demo. Your character will spawn in a predetermined location.
9. Character Creation Warning: You will be asked "create this character?". Press "yes" if you want to save your character and start the game or press "cancel" if you want to go back and make changes.(Once a character is created it can not be modified in the demo).

Controls

The most common default keys are now:

Character Controls

Right Mouse Bring up / Close the User Interface windows
W,A,S,D movement: forward, strafe left, backwards, strafe right
Mouse Turn, mouselook
F Use/ action key (vendors, mounts, ships, guns, vehicles, looting)
R Sheathe / Unsheathe (equipped weapon or staff)
C Crouch
Space Jump
Numlock Autorun
L Shift (+WASD) Sprint
Ctrl (+ WASD) Walk
0-9 Hotbar Slots skill/spell selection
Shift + 0-9 Hotbar selection(For fast access to the hotbar use shift 0 - 9)

First Person Mode Controls (Ranged, Spells)

* Mouse left button - Fire

Swimming Controls

* W,A,S,D - Forward, left, backwards, right
* C - Dive
* Space Bar and movement key - crawl-stroke swimming (faster)

Special Controls

To revive the character needs to have its weapon sheathed.

* Z - Revive (LMB/Attack bind to use)
* X - Gank (Press LMB/Attack bind to use)
* SPACE - Release(die) when incapacitated before the timer runs out.

Mount Controls

* To deploy a mount, double click on a mount figurine from your backpack while aiming at an appropriate spawning location. To ride the mount, sheathe weapons, target it from close proximity; use the "F" key. To dismount, sheathe weapons and use the "F" key.
* F - to mount/dismount
* R - Sheathe/Unsheathe a weapon on mounts
* W,A,S,D - move forward, turn left, move backwards, turn right
* Mouse - Mouseloook
* Q,E - Lean left, right
* Space - Jump
* Movement +Ctrl - Mount walks
* Numlock - Autorun
* Left Mouse when mount is standing still - Mount attacks Forward
* Left Mouse + S when mount is standing still - Mount attacks Backwards
* Mouse+ W,A,D - Weapon attack when mount is in motion

Ship Controls

Deploy a ship by double clicking a ship figurine in your backpack, while aiming at an appropriate spawning location for it. You'll need to swim to the ship and climb up the rope ladder to enter it.

* target the helm and press F key - Character takes control of the ship
* WASD - move forward, turn left, move backwards, turn right
* Mouse - Mouseloook
* Numlock - Autorun

Cannon controls

Deploy a cannon by double clicking on a cannon figurine in your backpack, while aiming at an appropriate spawning location for it.

* target cannon and press F key - man / abandon the cannon (with weapon unsheathed)
* Mouse - aim
* Left Mouse - Fire cannon

For all other options, and to change the default bindings, go to the Options -> Input Options, Key Bindings
Player Guide to Darkfall Demo

* See "starting out" in this same document
* You start Darkfall in first person mode. You can move around with the WASD keys and your mouse.
* Right click to bring the interface up.
* Open your backpack and in them you'll find loose equipment and more containers with more equipment.
* Double click on items or drag them on the paperdoll to equip them.
* Equip a weapon by double clicking on it in the backpack or dragging it on to the paperdoll.
* Use the -R- key to unsheathe a weapon and to go into melee combat mode. Your character is now in the 3d person perspective.
* The figurines in your backpack are character spawnable mounts, cannons, and ships.

Mounts

* To summon a mount, double-click one of the animal-shaped figurines in your backpack. The selected mount will appear somewhere in front of you. Run over to it and press F to jump onto the saddle. Please note that you can't mount anything while in combat mode. Press R to switch between the combat (3rd person) and movement (1st person) modes.
* While riding press and hold Ctrl to make the mount walk
* Press F again to dismount after you've sheathed your weapon.
* Since figurines can be looted and summoned mounts can be killed, it is quite possible to run out of mounts. Replacement figurines can be bought from Aldan Rein, who runs the marketplace in the center of Threshold.
* In this demo, the following mounts are available to you: human (Mercian) warhorses, orkish death pigs, and dwarven garmirs.

Deploying Cannons

* To deploy a cannon, double-click on one of the two cannon figurines in your backpack while aiming at an appropriate spawning location for it. If you get an error message, try again aiming at another spawning location.
* Use the F key to use.
* Cannons can be destroyed

Spawning and Driving ships

* To launch a ship, double-click on one of the two ship figurines in your backpack while aiming at an appropriate location for it.
* Go up to the helm and use the F key to take control of the ship.
* Whether or not someone is behind the helm, the ship's cannons can be manned and used.
* Ships can be sunk

Monsters in the demo: locations

* There are two primary monster haunts in this demo: a zombie-infested dwarven ruin which lies east of Threshold, and two hobgoblin forts on a mountain plateau to the north.
* To get to the ruins, first go to the statues which stand sentinel at Threshold's northeastern entrance. From there, travel straight east through a short pass, then follow the rock wall on your left until you see some stone buildings in various states of disrepair.
* The majority of undead in these ruins are Zombie Warriors equipped with grave-plundered weapons and improvised suits of armor. These undead grunts are commanded by much more dangerous Dire Zombies, who prefer to bombard enemies with spells while the Zombie Warriors do the dirty work.
* To get to the hobgoblin forts, travel north from the twin statues in Threshold's northeastern corner. Keep left through the mountain pass, then travel northeast through the forest until a plateau rises in front of you. Travel east in the shadow of the plateau until you reach a north-south pass. Once on the plateau itself, travel left until you see the wooden hobgoblin forts.
* While all hobgoblins are tough fighters, you should be extra careful around the fierce and relentless hobgoblin stormtroopers. Hobgoblin Heroes are very rare, but each such individual is extremely dangerous.

Quests

* In Threshold, pure player vs. player quests are handed out by Maugre, a sophisticated necromantic construct who serves Oncylus, a wizard bent on the village's destruction. Maugre stands in the northeastern part of town, just outside the inn. She only gives out quests that involve killing other players.
* A more conventional chain of quests is initiated by Skuldgrim Bighammer, a dwarf who owns a smithy in the western part of Threshold. This sequence immerses the players in an ongoing struggle to save Threshold from the machinations of Oncylus. Subquests include delivery missions, gathering missions, and several quests which involve killing the local zombies and hobgoblins.

Vendors

* Aldan Rein runs the marketplace in the heart of Threshold. He sells items needed for crafting, such as wood, leather, cloth, and iron ingots.
* Skuldgrim Bighammer is a blacksmith who stocks a wide variety of weapons and pieces of armor. His smithy stands in the eastern part of Threshold.

Swimming

* The character can swim by going into the water. See the controls section for character swim controls.
* Mounts also swim when controlled by the character.

Using melee weapons

* Use the crosshair to aim at your intended target and with the melee weapon unsheathed, click the left mouse button to attack.
* Weapon reach has not been optimized.

Using Ranged weapons

* Arrows need to be equipped, double-click on them in the backpack, or drag them on to the paperdoll.
* Equip a bow and use the R key to ready it.
* Aim at the target, take arrow drop, and distance into consideration before firing.
* Bow and spell rate of fire is very high in the demo for testing purposes.

Using Spells

* Open up the spell interface
* Select the spell school - see which spells are available.
* Drag the spell icon into the hotbar
* Equip a staff and use the R key to ready it
* Select the active spell by using the number key for the position the spell holds in the hotbar.
* Aim and Click the left mouse button to load and deploy the spell.

Basic Crafting

From the initial spawn point, run south down the hill and through the twin statue gate into Threshold. Turn right after the inn and continue through the village's main street until you see a marketplace on your left hand side. Within that marketplace stands an old human merchant (Aldan Rein) who sells crafting supplies. Position the pointer over him and press F to bring up a trade menu. For the purposes of this demo, the only raw material you'll need to buy is iron ingots. Double click and choose yes to buy ingots.

Continue west through the village until you see a hammer-and-anvil sign on your left. Move close to the anvil on the adjoining stone platform and press F to start crafting. On the resulting menu, first choose either weaponsmithing or armorsmithing, and then select a subcategory by clicking the plus sign next to it. Finally, click on one of the available items in order to preview its stats and see a list of required ingredients. At the bottom of the item window, you'll see your current character's chance of successfully crafting the item in question. This percentage chance is tied to your character's proficiency level(s) in the requisite skill(s).

If the crafting check succeeds, all ingredients and money will be lost and the created object will appear in your inventory. The equipment (i.e. the hammer) will be lost after several uses. If the check fails, the money and some ingredients will be lost.

Player vs. Player Combat

* You can freely engage in Player vs. Player combat in the Darkfall demo
* Mounted combat, mount vs. foot and foot vs. mount.
* Basic naval combat
* Land to ship combat using cannons and ranged weapons.

Dying

* When your character dies in Darkfall he's incapacitated for a short time. You can release by hitting the space bar, or wait to be revived, but you can also be finished off (Ganked).
* There is a tombstone which appears in the spot your character has died.

Looting

* Target the tombstone (which appears after a character or monster dies) and use the F key to open. Drag items from the opened window into your backpack to loot.

Chat commands
If for any reason you get stuck type in the chat box:
/do commit_suicide

When your character dies he respawns without equipment type:
/exec backpack

For a list of emotes type /list_emotes and type /emote name in the chatbox to execute the emote.

Developer Journal #12: Progress Update!
Andraste posted on 2 Aug 2007 11:55 am
aventurine, aventurine sa, darkfall, developer journal, features, mmorpg, pvp, tasos, tasos flambouras

We were surprised and delighted all in one to receive a journal from Tasos this week. The guys at Aventurine have been busy with their heads down, working, but Tasos popped up long enough to give us at WarCry an update.

Testing, bug fixing, and adding content are the order of the day. The worldbuilders have been improving areas of the world we created a long time ago before we had the wealth of worldbuilding assets that we have today. We're also adding more tools to make the testing process smoother.

Click for more!
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Thursday, July 19th
Features
Developer Journal #11: Aerdin Cat Gameplay Video
lepidus posted on 19 Jul 2007 1:41 pm
aerdin cat, aventurine sa, darkfall, developer journal, features, mmorpg, mount, movie, pvp, tasos flambouras, trailer, video

We're back on track with a new exclusive update from Tasos Flambouras and the Aventurine SA crew. This week, Tasos tells us a bit about the delay, what's been going on over in Greece and gives us a rare gameplay video of the Aerdin Cat, the Mirdain mount.

Since our last status update, there is not much to report: we've been fighting to meet our milestones, we've been adding content, and we've been testing. The beta build is essentially a release version functionality-wise so there are numerous things to go over.

Click below to check it out.
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Thursday, June 28th
Meida
Four Exclusive Screenshots
lepidus posted on 28 Jun 2007 7:01 am
aventurine sa, darkfall, developer journal, exclusive, features, mmorpg, movie, pvp, screenshots, tasos flambouras, video

Unfortunately, this week Tasos Flambouras was busy with travel and unable to get everyone a proper developer journal. Instead, we have four exclusive screenshots of the game for everyone to enjoy. These images show off the game's new dynamic shadows and some of the things they have planned for terrain textures.
image image
image image

Comments? Let us know!

Comments [15] Permalink
Friday, June 15th
Features
Developer Journal #10: State of Development
lepidus posted on 15 Jun 2007 10:45 am
aventurine sa, beta, darkfall, developer journal, features, tasos flambouras

After a short delay, for which Tasos includes his apologies, we have this week's Darkfall Developer Journal as promised. Inside, Tasos goes into the process of getting a game ready for Beta and how it is more complicated than some might think. This update is a lengthy one and include status reports on all kinds of areas.

I had written some things on this journal about the many technical activities relating to Darkfall development at the moment and then decided to take it out after speaking with Kjetil, our lead programmer. To quote him 'if we're going to talk to people about these things we might as well write a ten thousand page document with all the @#%$#@% little details'. So... basically Darkfall is a zoneless game, meaning servers are zoneless too, something most other MMOs don't have. Servers are collaborating in a cluster with dynamic responsibilities. That's what we're working on right now for the most part, the distribution. There's also some GUI work having to do with city building, and parties. We're also integrating with the game, the permission system for clans, the in-game boards, and the player journal, specifically the 'friends' and the 'holdings' functionalities. We're also working on the permission system, specifically for the clan vault. Clan boards are being integrated with the game, meaning that various in-game clan specifics work together with the clan boards.

Read more after the click.
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Thursday, May 31st
Features
Developer Journal #9: The Beta Question
lepidus posted on 31 May 2007 2:06 pm
aventurine sa, beta, darkfall, developer journal, features

Tasos Flambouras is back with his latest bi-weekly journal entry here on Darkfall WarCry. In it, he responds to a recent call from one of our columnists to tell us when the long awaited Beta really will be. For that and more, read on!

We've been throwing around the word beta quite a bit, and it's not to churn the waters, it's because it's what we're working on right now. An editorial on this site urged us to come out with a date. Well that's nice, and we will when we have one. We've specified that our internal target date is this summer and we can't get more specific yet, but we will when we're ready to make an announcement. We have recent negative examples of games with good potential being rushed out having been improperly tested and we don't want that for Darkfall. Things are going well and we'll keep you updated on that front as we know more ourselves.

Read more after the click.
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Monday, May 21st
Columns
Around Agon: Character Choice - Male or Female?
Gamegoddess posted on 21 May 2007 4:31 pm
adventurine sa, darkfall, features, gamegoddes

Ready set go. The game is out...you rip open the box you install, you patch, what is the first character you make? Do you make a character that is the same sex as you, or opposite sex?
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Friday, May 18th
Columns
Editor's Corner: Is Gaming Lore Important?
Gamegoddess posted on 18 May 2007 9:05 am
adventurine sa, aventurine sa, darkfall, dev journal, editorial, features, gamegoddes

Yesterday (May 17, 2007) the latest installment of the Darkfall Dev Journal was released. The Sands of Rubaiyat gave us more lore behind the story of Darkfall. This got me to thinking about how many people actually read game lore.
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Thursday, May 17th
Features
Developer Journal #8: The Sands of Rubaiyat
lepidus posted on 17 May 2007 1:31 pm
aventurine sa, darkfall, developer journal, features, tasos flambouras, the sands of rubaiyat

The desert continent of Rubaiyat is one of the many varied locations in the upcoming MMO Darkfall. Today's journal is an extensive, detailed look at that continent from Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras. We also got our hands on three exclusive screenshots of the area.

imageBrushed aside by the Red Pharaoh's onslaught, the surviving Sharjad retreated to the Leenshards, a chain of verdant islands which lie north of the Rubaiyat mainland - and outside the Ur-Khamset's reach, at least for now. Visitors to the lands of the Red Pharaoh use the cities of the Leenshards as staging posts, where supplies may be bought and loot sold.

Desperate for outside help, the Sharjad offer richly rewarded quests to groups and individuals who are brave enough to take up arms against the Red Pharaoh. The short-term goal of the Sharjad is survival through the decimation of the Pharaoh's troops. In a longer perspective, they seek both to destroy Ur-Khamset and to restore the flow of the Angra.

Read more after the click.
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Monday, May 14th
Columns
Around Agon: In Game Maps
Gamegoddess posted on 14 May 2007 12:21 pm
adventurine sa, darkfall, features, gamegoddes, gamegoddess, maps, warcry

Todays column was inspired by a topic thread from the official forums about in game maps so thank you Tearofsoul.

A link to that thread is located here
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=34845

If we go back to Ultima Online and look at what was in game we find the Cartographer. At a low skill you could only make maps of the immediate area. As your skill grew, you could make maps of the general area, the cities and then maps of a large area.
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Monday, May 7th
Columns
Around Agon: Skills and Spells
Gamegoddess posted on 7 May 2007 11:18 am
adventurine sa, around agon, columns, darkfall, features, gamegoddes, gamegoddess, warcry

Skills and spells are the very lifeblood of a mmorpg. We have seen them go from the very basic of Ultima Online which had if I remember right 8 magic spells to now the dev team is telling us DarkFall will open with 200 spells and the plan is to have 500. The game is supposed to go live with 300 skills and again the plan is to have 500.

It's been slow around the office for a few weeks, but people are starting to come back from their holidays so we should be back to full speed soon.

I have been working a lot with Darkfall quests lately, which is kinda ironic since I really hate questing in games. In WoW I couldn't stand questing, and only did them if someone in my guild were kind enough to take me by the hand and run me through them. I'd rather grind the same monsters over and over for days instead of doing quests - and trust me, I really hate grinding too.

Guess I just hate leveling in general.

We have some pretty good quests in Darkfall despite my hate for them. Luckily some of the other designers here, Trond and BT, are very much into them, and are doing a very good job implementing quests. We have very good tools for both adding hand-made quests, and for generating random ones, so there is a lot of content for any questing future Darkfall players out there.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Turns out we have more than 3.3 BILLION possible character dressing variations in Darkfall. Color combinations for almost every piece of wearable NOT included. Wieldables not included either, so there is another multiplier to factor in.

Sometimes I wonder if we should have made Barbie Online instead...

F13.net Interview
Thursday, May 13, 2004

I recently did an interview at F13.net:

f13: For those unfamiliar with you and your company, please give a description of yourself, your company, what game(s) your company is working on, and your role in the production of those games.

CG: My name is Claus Grovdal and I'm the Lead Designer and Producer of Darkfall, the MMORPG currently in development by Aventurine/Razorwax.

f13: World or game, which is more important? Why?

CG: The goal is to make a good game, and the world is a feature of the game, not the other way around. The nature of MMOGs obviously demands creating good persistent worlds, but if the game doesn't come first, you could end up with a glorified 3D IRC client.

f13: However, many people who get burnt out on the combat/exploration aspects of the games remain subscribed to log in and chat with friends, in a glorified IRC tavern - is there a place for this utility in every game? How can it be implemented so that it doesn't detract from other aspects of gameplay?

CG: Absolutely. I think that good community building tools such as chat, messaging, ingame boards, etc. are vital to any MMOG. It suprises me that ingame boards are not a standard feature of most MMOGs.

f13: In your opinion, are MMOGs converging towards a model of perfection or diverging into new genres?

CG: I think we're far from even beginning to talk about a model of perfection for MMOGs. We're still in the embryonic stages of a new industry, and everything is still evolving. Game design, game concepts, marketing, distribution, billing methods, publishing models, platforms - the growth of the MMOG industry is happening as we speak, just considerably slower than some of the more optimistic observers predicted a few years ago.

f13: Some companies are claiming to be 2nd and 3rd generation MMORPGs - aside from being your typical PR Bullshit, what generation of MMORPGs do you think we're currently in (by your comments, I would assume 1st generation - which is what many fans believe)?

CG: It's just semantics. Whether you are talking about 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation, it is all relative and irrelevant. Whatever generation we are at, we are the next one

f13: Does the so-called casual gamer exist? If so, what design goals would attract such a player to a game?

CG: There is still no real evidence proving there is such a thing as a large base of casual MMOG players. Planetside is a game designed for more casual players were you log in for instant action. I think it proved that in order to get paying subscribers, you have to compete with and offer more than what traditional multiplayer games such as Counterstrike and Battlefield 1942 gives for free.

The predicament is of course that if you offer more, you might actually add too much and the game requires bigger time investments by the player than you initially planned. It's an interesting design dilemma.

For example, community building is in my opinion one of the most important aspects of MMOGs. You have a community of friends and enemies, and players keep coming back to MMOGs to play with their friends, and fight their enemies. A problem here is that as soon as players become part of this community, they start feeling the pressure from their friends about playing more, building their characters so they can keep up, helping the team out etc, and they have to decide if they want to invest more time in the game or not.

The first game to offer players more than Counterstrike, but with considerably less time investments than Lineage II, might have a real winner on their hands. I think Shadowbane came close, but they had too many and too serious technical problems with their software.

f13: We've been playing what seems like the same game since the first MUDs came out, what do you think is currently missing from the MMOG genre that's keeping it from breaking into the next generation?

CG: I think we need to see a shift in publisher strategies.

When companies invest enormous amounts of money and resources on big projects like MMOGs are, there's a lot of responsibility attached to it. Companies and developers could choke under this kind of pressure, and start questioning themselves, often ending up with settling for proven concepts, cutting important game features, spending too little time testing, and releasing the game earlier than they're supposed to.

The problem is unfortunately that settling for proven concepts, and cutting features that made a game stand out in the first place, often translates to boredom for the players, and they naturally don't want to pay to play.

Maybe there will be a shift in publisher strategies eventually, following the venture capitalist model of investing $30M on 10 small projects, instead of on one big one. Then after a year or so of development, they could pick the best projects, juice them up, and cut the poor ones or release them as budget titles.

I think that would help.

f13: What model of government do MMORPG developers attempt to replicate in-game (I.E. Japanese Feudalism, Anarchy, Capitalism, etc)? In addition, What model of government do you think works best given the unpredictability of a world where killing is the main form of progression?

CG: Players tend to organize themselves into primitive tribal communities within the games they play. I am not so sure this is always a conscious design decision by the developers, but nevertheless it's the result.

I don't think it should be up to the developers to replicate or to dictate government or economic models in MMORPGs. Give the players the tools to successfully pick the government models themselves. When the game is released, the game should belong to the players, not the developers.

f13: With the new MMORPG, City of Heroes, we have seen the epitome of classification among character archetypes. They have been blatently labeled Tanker (Warrior), Blaster (Archer), Scrapper (Rogue), Defender (Paladin), and Controller (Generic Crowd Control) and as such have left zero room for creativity (which they allocated into clothing customization). By labeling thusly, we are told what kind of character we are to play - and have almost zero room for deviation.

Has character archetypes 'jumped the shark' as it were, only leaving enough room for minor changes, or are we actually going to see innovation? Discuss the future of character archetypes as you see it.

CG: I am not a very big fan of predefined character classes. Frankly I think this is another symptom of the settling for proven concepts problem.

The main argument for predefined character classes has always been game balance, but I think there are better ways of balancing while at the same time allowing the players the freedom to play how and what they want without having to constantly reroll new characters.

Let the players define their own character classes. Let them pick up the skills, spells and equipment they feel like. As an example, in Darkfall we haven't balanced the spell casters by not allowing them to wear armor; instead we've given armor a casting time penalty. This way you can decide yourself if you want to be a quick but fragile mage, or a slow but more protected tank mage.

The freedom to let the players be more in charge of how they play games - I think this is a huge deal in moving the MMOG genre forward.

f13: How would you avoid the pitfalls of the current crop of PVP-centric games, such as the power of the zerg, 3 AM raid syndrome, time-investment being more important than player skill, serial killer griefer PK syndrome, and the loser quitting because rebuilding is too hard?

CG: You have a thread discussing the Darkfall siege system here on the F13.net boards, so I kind of expected this question. We have several ways of balancing the power of the zerg and the 3AM raid syndrome, but I don't want to go into specifics yet.

Speaking about the losing side quitting the game because rebuilding is too hard, I think it is important to break the entire gameplay down into smaller steps. In Shadowbane you could build a city for months, only to have it burned down completely in a few hours. It is a cool sounding feature on paper, but in the end I think it is punishing the losing side way too much. I don't have any numbers to back it up, but I am pretty confident that every guild that had their city burned down, saw a good percentage of their players quitting the game in the following few days. Rebuilding after defeat was just too hard and tedious, and most players didn't want to go through with that again.

In Dark Age of Camelot they adopted the small steps philosophy. You can take over another guild's keep, and the losing side doesn't lose that much. Additionally, the losers can get the keep back fairly easily; it hasn't been burned down to the ground. I personally feel that the risks and rewards are too small, close to insignificant in Dark Age of Camelot, but still better than in Shadowbane.

I think a better balance lies somewhere between Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot. Let the conqueror take over the city and allow them to destroy a few assets if they so desire, but limit how much they can burn down. Basically you want them taking over instead of destroying. This way the losing guild has the chance to lick their wounds, regroup and try to take their city back through diplomacy, trade, or by force.

You keep most of the gameplay about building and taking over, instead of destruction, which ultimately chases players away from the game. The fun part in both Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot is the fighting anyway, so now there's always something to fight over.

It's still possible to burn down entire cities in Darkfall, but only a few buildings/structures every so often, giving the losing team the possibility of reclaiming what was theirs before it is forever gone. With this system we hope to increase the fun and excitement of waging war, and decrease the sense of a definitive Game Over.

f13: Here's a simple one: Is it solely the publisher's fault when games are rushed out the door?

CG: I think the term "rushed out the door" is misleading. The truth is usually that initial time estimates were wrong, and the developers need more time to finish the game than decided when contracts were made, and budgets were allocated. It is a sad fact, but correctly estimating the development time of a game is extremely hard, and almost always fails.

Publishing games is a business, and money to keep funding development is not always available. For most companies money is a limited resource, and even if the resources exist, publishers still have to make sound business decisions.

I think it's really a shared responsibility. The developers failed to deliver the game at an agreed date, and the publishers decided to release the game anyway.

Unfortunately everyone loses when a game is released too early. Players get an unfinished product, and publishers/developers usually lose sales.

f13: The most successful American MMOG to date, Everquest, has spawned numerous knockoffs that, frankly, suck. How dangerous to the creativity of the industry is an incredibly successful release?

CG: Copying is not exclusive to the gaming industry. It is a human trait; for every Coca Cola there is a Pepsi. In some cases cloning helps create better cars, faster planes or cheaper burgers and that is a good thing for most industries and consumers. I agree that the Everquest phenomenon has mostly been slowing down the evolution of the MMOG industry, but I am not so sure we would have been better off without it.

f13: Aside from the games you are developing, are there any MMOG's on the horizon that blow your hair back? If so, why? Also, what MMOG most influenced your current focus, Darkfall?

CG: I probably learned something, and found inspiration in every game I ever played. If I had to pick one game though, it would have to be Ultima Online. The freedom Ultima Online offered players has been a mantra for me and the rest of the team when working on Darkfall.

Making games is my daytime job, but I am also a fanatic gamer. I really wish there were a few MMOGs on the horizon that blew my hair back, but I honestly can't say there is. There are a few interesting ones, such as City of Heroes, but none that really keeps me up at night plotting and planning.

f13: Is there anything you'd like to add? Any comments for our readers or inside information on Darkfall or future releases you'd like to throw in?

CG: Darkfall is currently in internal testing, and we are slowly gearing up for external play testing. We are in a fortunate position financially, and having a knowledgeable and understanding community, we're able to take the time to try and get everything right before we release the game.

We plan to release Darkfall within 2004.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

An interview I did at GameMethod.com a few weeks ago:

Dionysis: Which games influenced the design of DarkfallOnline?

Claus: Pretty much every game we ever played. Some gave us good ideas, others showed us new ways of improving game play or confirmed design theories we had on paper for years. Even the games that we didn't like gave us something - spotting a bad or poorly implemented feature in a game can be as helpful as finding a great one, and can influence design decisions. We try to learn from mistakes we find in other games so that we don't repeat them in Darkfall.

Dionysis: What's the style of play you're trying to achieve?

Claus: A fun one! We're making Darkfall as much fun to play as possible.

Dionysis: How do you feel about permadeath as a mechanic that brings about repercussion and consequence to one's actions?

Claus: I think there are better ways to hold players accountable for their actions than permadeath. The alignment system in Darkfall is designed to do just that.

Dionysis: Do you believe that there is a synergy between PvP and permadeath?

Claus: Not at all, in fact I think they are direct conflict with each other. PvP should be a fun and challenging feature, not a big bad scarecrow that most players are afraid of. It's like having to level up a new character for a month or so every time he dies in Counterstrike or Unreal. Permadeath in any form or shape is directly damaging to a PvP game.

Dionysis: What would you say if I told you DarkfallOnline is heralded as the "next UO" for all those hardcore players out there beyond "we know" =]

Claus: Ultima Online in its original form has definitely been a great source of inspiration for Darkfall, but as our players will find out, Darkfall brings a lot of new and unique things to the genre. Obviously, being heralded as the "next UO" sounds good to me.

Dionysis: How would you respond to the following statements?

"Easily the largest (and most profitable) group are games that cater to PvP-
players. Bigger companies tend to go with the safety that PvP- games like
FFX1 and EQ2 provide, while startup companies take a risk to produce PvP+
games like DarkfallOnline, Trials of Ascension and Frontier 1859"

and

"The gap between PvP+ and PvP- MMOrpg's is growing. The intricate detail
necessary for balancing a game of each play style requires a different
perspective on designing treadmills, economy and social structures. soon
PvP+ and PvP- games will make up separate genre's."

Claus: I don't agree with these statements at all. I think the first really good PvP MMORPG may sell really well, and it probably has a bigger potential future audience than any of the PvE games.

Human nature is competitive by design. We really enjoy fighting other people, and since permadeath is the biggest design flaw in real life, we invented sports so we could re-spawn and fight the same people over and over again.

I think when the mass-market - that's already playing PvP games such as Quake, Half-Life, Counterstrike, Unreal, Red Alert, Wolfenstein, Magic the Gathering etc - discover a PvP MMORPG that can give them the correct combination of adrenaline rush, sense of togetherness in the form of clans and communities competing against each other in a rich and well-developed online world, the mass-market will be there for the PvP MMORPG.

When it comes to the gap between PvP+ and PvP- MMORPGs, well I don't really see why there has to be a gap at all. The PvP community has been short-changed for years, with PvP content poorly patched into games clearly not designed to support any meaningful player conflict. With Darkfall we hope to make a game that has enough MMORPG content to make the PvE players drool with envy, and at the same time delivering prime PvP.

Well the single most encouraging bit of info is only good, if it's true. (Which I can find no proof of, other than the developers claim)

They are said to have taken out a $27.5 million loan recently, which says to me "Advertising, Publishing and Server purchasing"
If true it also means they have a business plan and a product that a bank was comfortable enough with to give them a loan of that size. The payments on a loan of that size means they plan to have an income and soon.

Now of course I have been unable to confirm this loan in any tangible means. All the sites reporting it list the Darkfall developers as their source of information. So really it's just taking the Devs word that they took out a loan.

Established in 1863, Lambadarios Law Offices has had an encouraging year advising Chandris Hotels on a bond loan to finance the construction of a new hotel in Thessaloniki for €40 million, acting for Aventurine in relation to its issue of a €20 million convertible bond loan with Marfin Bank, and representing Proton Investment Bank on issuing a convertible bond loan through a private placement with an option to be traded through the Athens stock exchange.

A bond is simply a loan, but in the form of a security, although terminology used is rather different. The issuer is equivalent to the borrower, the bond holder to the lender, and the coupon to the interest. Bonds enable the issuer to finance long-term investments with external funds. Certificates of deposit (CDs) or commercial paper are considered money market instruments.

Clans in Darkfall

Anyone can start a clan in Darkfall. From that point on, our goal as developers has been to make it as easy as possible for you and your comrades to compete in one of the most challenging multiplayer environments ever created. The only problem with this is that you're going to have a hell of a lot of competition.

A balance of good strategy and tactics, formations, missions, as well as logistics, supply and support roles is crucial to being successful in Darkfall's clan warfare.

The following is a brief introduction to various aspects of clans in Darkfall.

Clan composition
It's theoretically possible to have an all race clan. Most however, will opt for a race / alignment compatible composition for reasons of convenience and efficiency. Compatible race and alignment make it possible for the clan to be at the same location and use the same NPC merchants and NPC guards - among other things.

Those who argue that Darkfall will be dominated by ARAC (all race all class) clans are confusing it with other games. First of all, there are no classes in Darkfall, only skills, and as unique as our races are, they are balanced. An all race clan compared to a race / alignment compatible one will only have management problems to overcome, without any benefits to speak of.

Darkfall concept image



Clan identity
Clans control areas by occupying clanstones and bindstones. They build cities and own resource gathering locations. Not all clans will opt to build a city. A few examples - there will be nomadic, opportunistic clans moving from location to location, and seafaring and pirate clans moving around in ships. There will also be mercenary clans whose location will depend on their mission. Merchant clans and bandit clans will also probably follow a location strategy.

Clan leaders will be able to upload their appropriate clan images, which are used on banners and flags in the clan city, and on battle standards worn on the character's back, much like the samurai did in feudal Japan. When assessing another character, you can see his clan affiliation and rank.

Clan hierarchy
Clan leadership is determined by a ranking system. Each rank has its own clearance level and permissions. The clan's leaders have the authority to promote and demote their clanmates. Clan member contributions as well as performance are measured and recorded for reference.

A Mahirim near a Tribelands village under colorful autumnal leaves


Diplomacy
Diplomacy between clans takes the form of a formal status. The default is neutral, and there are several levels that can be chosen between "Allied" and "At War".

The only symmetrical status is war; when war is declared on your clan by another, you're automatically at war with them as well. Everyone is able to see your clan's diplomatic standings by visiting your in-game clan page.

Warfare
There are clear victory conditions in Darkfall; you win or lose a battle, you capture a mine, and you conquer a city.

There are skirmishes, raids, razzings of buildings, enforcement, protection, and policing missions, massive battles, ally support, etc.

When you lay siege to someone's city, yours becomes vulnerable as well - to anyone.

A balance of good strategy and tactics, formations, missions, as well as logistics, supply and support roles is crucial to being successful in Darkfall's clan warfare.

Clan tools
There are clan management tools to satisfy even the most demanding control freak while simultaneously allowing leaders to delegate authority without losing their peace of mind. Our goal for these tools is that you won't need anything further to run a successful clan other than what we offer you in-game. There is an in-game clan site, announcements and alerts, message boards, recruiting tools, statistical records, management system, diplomacy interface, etc. Clan tools will be constantly updated and upgraded based on feedback from the clans themselves.

Clan related issues
Some of the major lessons learned by playing other games:

"Zerg" - This is a term used to describe the use of sheer numbers to dominate. Some of the safeguards against this in Darkfall are the cap at how many characters can tie at clanstones and bindstones, fast transportation limitations, distance between cities, area of effect spells and weapons, but most of all, the full collision detection together with friendly fire. A small, elite clan with good tactics can win against multiple numbers.

On our end, we're setting up an awesome playing field for the great clans to be able to make their marks. We will revisit clans in more detail in subsequent installments

"3am Raids" - There is an exciting sequence of events that has to do with laying siege to a town. Besides this being a fun process, rest assured that nobody will be caught unawares.

ARAC guilds - As discussed above, while this is possible, the only reason to have one is for the sake of having one. There is no advantage.

Lack of victory conditions - It was important to us from the start to have clear victory conditions and tangible results to conflict, as well as a purpose for clan warfare, and consequences. It has been frustrating in games we've played in the past, where all of the above were fuzzy at best.

Battling a spellcasting Sadayel lizardman near a Beast Cult fort


Clan beta
We began taking signups for clan beta a while back. Thousands of clans have applied so far, and more continue to apply every day. We look over every single application, visit the website, their community and invite good candidates to register. Further screening will determine the clans selected for testing and the order in which they will be let in.

It's great to see the best and brightest MMO clans coming out in force, along with some of the biggest and best action, shooter and strategy game clans looking for a massive-scale experience.

On our end, we're setting up an awesome playing field for the great clans to be able to make their marks. We will revisit clans in more detail in subsequent installments of RPG Vault's Darkfall Peeks.

Kingdoms
Kingdoms are blocks of land, varying greatly in size and shape, much like territories in board games such as Risk and Axis & Allies, with random resources. Resources can be stuff like:

Mines (ranging from Iron to typical fantasy ones such as "Adamantium" mines), Grassland (farms), Forest area w/timbermill (wood), Harbour (fish & trade), Lake (fish), Mountain (stone), etc.

The kingdoms close to a race capital will be pretty developed, with a city and maybe a couple of villages and mines (resources) already. Kingdoms in the wilderness will be allot less developed, and some will only have a small village, and just sites were mines/mills/farms etc can be constructed. There will probably be quite allot of kingdoms with nothing - everything has to be built from scratch.

All kingdoms can be conquered, claimed and owned by player clans (except the capital of each race - we need a relatively safe area for new players to spawn) - and when a clan owns a kingdom, they can build anything they want, and destroy whatever they don't want. We will probably NOT allow anyone to destroy anything in a kingdom until they own the kingdom. This is to limit potential griefing. But obviously a clan can conquer a kingdom from another clan, burn everything, and then leave the kingdom laughing -> this is still harder than just waiting till someone is logged out, and then burn their house down though. We are still unsure how many kingdoms we can put in there before release, but we are aiming for A LOT.

Amy pointed out the fact to me the other day, that the company just took out a 27.5 million dollar loan, to purchase servers and such for this game.... In my eyes, thats a huge leap towards commitment of getting this game on the shelves.

Unless, as amy put it... They intend to hide away till the loan is used up, and then declare bankruptcy... its too early in the morning, and i can't remember the exact clever way she put it.... but thats the jist of it.

Yeah, it's a massive project, that's one of the reasons it's been in production for almost 7 years and in full production over 4 years.

Dev Journal: Darkfall August 31th 2007
Written by Tasos Flambouras (Ass. Producer)

Today (Friday) we have a new Darkfall version up, which is almost feature complete. The features not enabled in this version yet are enchantment, which should be patched in next week, a feature where you can see where other characters at looking at including up and down, some spells and skills are not enabled yet because of their animations and effects not being finalized yet, and some special coding for the Mahirim which is being tested at the moment. This version has already been tested by the programmers and will undergo rigorous testing by the entire team starting today. This will be done without using any developer cheats, to make sure that everything is working as intended. As soon as I'm done writing this journal, I'm logging into Darkfall to start testing the new version myself.

We're working on hardware compatibility and hardware support issues. There are some minor problems with some older NVIDIA cards which are being addressed. Some Z fighting issues are also being dealt with at the moment. Z fighting is basically a graphical glitch where you get some flickering in areas where polygons meet or are placed too close together. It has to do with world building and the placement of objects.

We're building tools for ourselves to automate data integrity testing, and to report inconsistencies in the content.

We're testing a file archiving system which makes dynamic loading a lot faster, and this is important since Darkfall is a zoneless world, and this work is directly related to the preparations for the beta testing of Darkfall.

We're doing some research on hardware needed for launch.

Some character collision issues with tree branches have just been fixed.

The display of the chat/event/messaging system has been upgraded to more clearly differentiate actions and events.

Some super secret stuff is also being worked on at the moment. More on this later because Kjetil won't let me talk about it right now.

Most of the work now consists of adding and testing content, mainly quests, NPCs, and dungeons. We're adding all kinds of things though, for example something we're doing right now is adding monster armor sections which can be looted and worn by characters. Each of these needs to be fitted for all races and each sex, so 12 templates in total for each armor bit. We have hundreds of unique armor sections now which can be mixed and matched, and dyed, giving millions of possible combinations.

Roads and road signs are being installed in the game and Banks and post offices are also being placed. Areas that were created a long time ago are being upgraded and finalized.

Resource animations are being wrapped up, those are animations related to resources, like crafting, mining, etc. We're brushing up older content like the Mirdain architecture which needed some extra attention. Racial structures in the clan city resources are also being brushed up. Particles and special effects are also getting some final improvements, and we're also working with some terrain optimizations.

We had several people at the Game Convention in Leipzig on our behalf while we stayed behind to continue working. Same applies to the upcoming Austin Game Developer Conference. As for the public beta, we're still in the process of preparation and waiting for something to break as discussed in the last update. Unfortunately there's nothing further I can say about this yet. I might have more to say on that in the next journal - or not. In the meanwhile we keep working on the game as you can see here.

The Q&A I talked about in the last update will have to wait until the week after next.

The fires in Greece were and still are terrible, there were days where it rained ash and the sky was black from the smoke. One of the fires stopped a block away from my house before it changed direction, and I came home to about a foot of ash everywhere and a scorched environment. Thanks go out to all those who where concerned, or sent messages of support, or to ask if we're OK.

Yes.

I can't say if it will involve menus or not, but crafting will be extremely deep in Darkfall. You can craft anything and everything in the game. The quality of your materials, level of skill and crafting location will decide in the quality of your item. Also, items decay and there is full loot, so crafters will have their jobs cut out for them, and won't be victims to inflation.

About myself

I have been playing MMO games for more than 10 years primarily with the Lords of Death. The Realm, UO beta, UO through the early days to Trammel. Everquest, Daoc, AC, Jumpgate, Shadowbane, WoW, Eve, Vanguard and I may be missing a game or two. So, I think I know a little about MMO games and what I like and what I don’t like. It basically boils down to this. The more player freedom in a game the more I like it. Given the opportunity it is amazing what shape and direction online communities can take when they have freedom to do whatever they want. It is fun and exciting to observe and be part of such worlds. The closest any games have come to this were early Shadowbane up to the mass gold dupe exploit and early UO dread days. The worst MMO game I ever played was WoW.

About Aventurine

In my line of work I have to hire people all the time. It is second nature to judge people and try to guess what they are capable of. The very first quality I look for is honesty. If I don’t believe that someone is an honest person any further interview is pointless because you don’t want to base your opinion and decision on bullshit on top of bullshit. During my visit at the Aventurine offices I met with many of the key staff. They were open, relaxed, friendly and genuinely honest. I believe everything they told me that day to be true.

Meeting with Tasos and Kjetil Helland.

Tasos went out of his way to help me meet with them, which was surprising to me. I was very pessimistic about Darkfall and believed it to be vaporware. Naturally, I expected a lot of excuses and reasons from them not to meet. So, I went to Athens, got into the hotel and went to bed. The plan for next morning was to call up Tasos, hear some bullshit, find out that they can’t meet with me and then off to the Acropolis and other fun things to visit in Athens. In the morning I called Tasos (who is originally from Boston, MA) and to my surprise he did anything he could to help me get to their offices. He went online, found where I was at, what subway lines to take to a less congested area from where to pick me up by car and drive me to the Aventurine offices. The center of Athens, where my hotel was, is a nightmare to drive in and out of and would have taken hours. Otherwise, he would have picked me up straight from the hotel.

I got on the subway, first took the red line two stops then the blue line for about 6 stops to Halendra and got off at the exact time Tasos predicted. So far so good! It was a big subway station and I was supposed to wait for him. I didn’t know what he looked like so while waiting I was trying to guess by looking at the people coming in. I was scouting for someone who looked like a nerd, so when Tasos came up to me, it was surprising to see a tough looking big dude. He was nice and had a balanced demeanor. He didn’t have an attitude nor was he shy. He was easy to talk with. We spoke about martial arts, his car, the United States, Greece; anything but the game. With my belief that the game is vaporware, I frankly hadn’t read much about it. I wanted to postpone as much as possible for the moment when my questions and comments would reveal my total ignorance about Darkfall. Afterall, there was still the chance they had a dinky office with couple of people in it. So I waited.

We got there and their office was not one room but looked like occupied an entire floor of the building. I could see at least a couple of dozen of programmers doing different things. Just briefly passing by the dev area I could catch a glimpse of people coding, working on landscape design, someone was working on medieval buildings for what looked like a human style city. This shop was all about business and the people impressively professional.

Tasos and Kjetil (Darkfall’s lead programmer) sat down in their conference room and they said, “Let’s talk about Darkfall” We began with general Q&A. First we talked about previous games we have played. We talked about the early days of UO which is part of the inspiration for Darkfall, the violence and chaos and pkers vs antis etc. We talked about other games and how they fell short of expectations of players like myself. Then we went on to talk about Darkfall. The concept of Darkfall is to create a free world, where players are in control of their own destiny and the destiny of the game world. They don’t want to force players to be good or evil, guilds big or small, but instead, are very excited to see what direction, shape and form things are going to evolve from the player base. The Adventurine team is extremely motivated to create a realm where players decide their own fate. Simply, Adventurine has created the landscape, the players will create the world!

Here are some major highlights of our discussion:

- “How will Darkfall appeal to a wider range of players?”

The idea of the game is to provide something enjoyable for every niche of player. To not only give them something they can’t help but continue (investment into a grind), but to allow them to enjoy the diversity of they’re choices. After all, if you’re not planning to be a mage raining down death from the top of a tower or a battle proven captain maintaining an iron fist amidst the chaos on your ship’s deck in a sea battle, there are actually viable alternatives. For instance, some of the best items that players can obtain in this game will be crafted. This leads to a robust economy with the need for trade of goods and resources to emerge. Simply, if you do not wish to be a dealer of death, you can be a merchant of wares. If you were never cut out for city life, this world is immense and there will be adventure to be had for those seeking to continually push the frontier.

- “Will I be at disadvantage to a power gamer who plays 24/7, has spell of ‘Pwn thee’ that does 1875 hp damage and a purple ‘Sword of Castration’ doing 1585 hp per second?”

Its ok if you have a life and play Darkfall. However, you’d better have PvP talent or else you should craft a shovel and find work digging ditches. Darkfall will be a game of actual skill. Sure you will be acquiring skills and spells. Kind of like in UO, skills and spells cap at 100. But the real trick is using them. There will be many skills and many spells and using them the right way is what I think will make someone better in fighting. You can have a super developed character, but if you don’t know how to use it, any noob can smoke you. I expect to see the weirdest combination of skills and spells people come up with and new flavors of the month all the time. As far as kick ass items. The game is not item based. Don’t use anything you don’t mind losing. Besides full loot, items will wear out, so make sure you have enough backup armor and weapon sets.

- “What rules will be in place in regards to who you can attack and what reward/penalty you get for kills/death?”

You can kill anyone. Everything in your possession can be looted. No one gets claim to a kill as a corpse can be looted by an unlimited number of people. Kills are recorded. You will know who you have killed as well as who killed you.

- “Zerg vs smaller guilds. Will battles be decided by who can field the most players?”

As previously stated, In Darkfall skill is much more important than numbers. I feel that a well-coordinated small group of guildmates can destroy a large army by using the terrain better, smarter choice of weapons and equipment, tactics and other. It would be harder to get a large group of people fighting well together. This is due in large part to the high level of friendly collision that will exist in Darkfall. The game has friendly collision so if someone is using a large weapon, or area of effect spells, he can hit his guildmates nearby. Even healers have to watch their craft as they could accidentally heal the enemy.

- “Invisibility has been overpowered in just about every game it has been instituted in. How will Darkfall address this?”

It should take skill to be invisible. Just like real life. You wear camo, you move silently and hide in the bushes. Playing paintball, I have run into guys who were so well hidden you couldn’t see them from 10 feet away. And then you get shot- ouch. Now that’s what I call skill. Darkfall will be using similar approach. If you are using the skill, you won’t be on the radar and you will move silently but the rest is up to you. To not be seen, you have to use the terrain and be mindful of light etc. Sneaking up on a guy would be something not everyone would be capable of doing well.

- “Shadowbane was fun. We love to burn stuff down!”

People can find places to call home and they can find places to raid. Although you can’t build anywhere you’d like, you can build around major resources and other points of interest that have impact on the game world. This is going to contribute to conflict greatly.

- “Many games have allowed Player Killers to exist, but usually under extreme penalty, or unviable circumstances. What is your take on this?”

It is a completely viable way of playing Darkfall to live outside the cities and prey on other players. So a group of 4 can have fun being the evil dudes in a forest. If they are good enough, they might very well be able to avoid retribution from the guilds, whose members they kill. Once again it falls upon your skill to succeed or fail.

- “Sailing takes me away to where I always dreamed I could be!”

Sea battles. This is something that can add a lot of fun to a massive game. A party of people being good with ships will be very valuable in many ways. They can transport troops and resources. They can raid coast lines, give support to coastal battles with its canons or just plain rob other ships as pirates for fun and profit. There is a lot of thought put into ships. There are different sizes ships from a 10 canon ship to huge 50 canon ships. One person can mount a canon and use it to shoot at people, shoot at other canons, other ships, coastal buildings, npcs or whatever else. If you have 50 people on your 50 canon ship you can dish out some serious damage. That is, unless the enemy boards your ship, kills the captain (also a player) and turns the whole ship around so your canons can’t aim at the target. If the ship sinks and you are on the lower decks, you sink and die with it. Imagine 50 guildmates trying to escape a sinking ship through the narrow doorway going onto the upper deck. Each trying to push their way through and what it would be like if a couple of enemies are at the entrance pushing back and killing people.

- “I’ve seen great games held back by poor underdeveloped economies and others still ruined when the economic conditions collapsed due to dupes and unforeseen imbalances.”

I was told that Darkfall will introduce small amounts of gold through npc vendors and monsters and will have sufficient number of gold sinks to drain it. We didn’t go into too much details, but for example selling something to an npc for gold will be almost not worth the effort because the buy prices would be so low. While selling to players would bring a lot more profit. Basically, supply and demand system with a stable monetary mass, resulting in overall stability even though you may still have some inflation with time just like real life economies.

- “You #$^@ing noob!”

Obscene language is something I asked about numerous times as I know how my guildmates are (especially Judas). I was assured that no one will be banned for obscene language or things they type. The game will be rated as “adult” so if you don’t like to see /raped you can filter out that person or just take it like an adult.

- “Tasos, can I sexually please you, or a live animal of your choice, right here, right now in order to begin beta testing Darkfall promptly?”

Right now they are almost done with a new build that might be a candidate for beta. They seemed to indicate that they hoped for this build to reach stability by the end of October. While I didn’t get confirmation (not that I can reveal) that this could in fact be the beta version, I really got the feeling that this could be the case. Why do I believe this? The guys were talking with confidence that the game could be released in 2008 and, from what I’ve seen, I believe them. Additionally, they talked about different publishers and difficulties in the whole process of getting a game published as if this was part of the hold up. Tasos and Kjetil want the release to be a finished game above anything else and for people to enjoy it as a polished product from day one. 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!

Moving on to the tour and actual gameplay:

After our conversation in the conference room we went to one of the offices where a guy was working on various art stuff. I saw 3D models of buildings, bridges other structures, npcs, creatures, and was able to see how they are supposed to work with player characters. Like for example when they create a structure, they take a 3d box with the size of the player character and move it around to make sure it doesn’t get stuck somewhere and the structure is usable in different ways. I saw the dragon from the main web page and how huge it is from a player perspective. An orc looks really small next to it. Then they explained how they are creating the graphics so they look good but don’t require as much in-game resources which I didn’t understand well but it is basically more designer work for improved performance so you can have a seamless world with huge battles possible without them being a slide show.

Then they set me up on one of the computers to actually play the game. Since the most current release wasn’t stable they set me up with a stable version from last year. Outside of the company employees and some prospective publishers I was the first one to play a Darkfall demo! It was very exciting.

I got to be an orc. First thing I did was open my inventory (backpack). It was delightful to see the messy backpack full of pouches and various pieces of armor and weapons- UO style. This brought back memories of the inventory system I most enjoyed in MMO’s. I started to double click on the different stuff, equipping and unequipping different armor pieces and weapons. By the time I was done, my orc looked fearsome and ready to take on the world! The eye candy was definitely present and inspiring. In fact it was the best warlike looking orc I have ever played- and I have played many.

I was in the middle of some grassy hills right outside a small village and did I mention that the game was graphically stunning? I jumped up and down a few times, swung the different weapons around, ran here and there a bit. You know, the kind of stuff any dumb orc would do first thing. Then Kjetil came, he was some kind of magic user (not sure what race) and started showing me around. Of course I couldn’t help but hit him a few times with various weapons. He started throwing fireballs in different directions. Those were very impressive both visually and audibly. You felt that something bad is coming your way and you better hide. The ground was shaking, the buildings were burning. Things were breaking. He then did an area effect fire spell that hit me and I couldn’t see much but myself and everything around me burning. Tasos, who was behind me said : Move out, move out. So I moved out of the fire and I saw that a large circle of fire was burning around Kjetil. It looked amazing standing outside of the AOE and watching everything burn.

Kjetil then summoned a couple of mounts. I immediately got on one and he got on the other. They were intuitive, yet not as easy to handle as I thought. It was very realistic. Don’t expect horse riding to be easy in every situation. It does require some skill and it gets tricky when in tight space between buildings or players. Basically mounts shine in the open space. Aside from speed you can do all kinds of things when on them, typical for fighting on top of a mount. Like leaning sideways so you don’t get hit, for example. We fought in the city and I felt I needed to kill his mount first so I aimed my hits at his horse’s head. Indeed his horse died and all of a sudden he was on foot.

After horse riding and fighting we ran outside of the city to the sea coast. I got to use the bow. It was very realistic. Yet, not unnecessarily complicated. You aim, you get a timer bar and the arrow goes off. It has the arc trajectory of an arrow you’d expect, meaning it doesn’t fly in a straight line. You’ll just have to be good at using bows and judge the target and distance to be able to hit. You don’t get unlimited arrows but you can shoot as many as you have equipped.

Then he summoned a ship and we swam to it and climbed on board. I mounted one of the canons and aimed it at a building. Then shot the canon and there went off a ball in a normal trajectory hitting the building. It was a feeling of destruction and mayhem. He then summoned another ship and we started to shoot at each other. I was destroying other canons on his ship and shooting at the ship itself till it sunk. It awas a blast- literally! Then I left the canon and assumed control of the ship. Sailing it all kinds of directions and turning it around while he was shooting one of the canons. I wasn’t very good at it though and I can tell controlling ships does require skill and patience. Then we went on the lower deck and sunk the ship so we can drown with it; another realistic feature of sea combat in Darkfall. We were using the smallest ships in the game. I can’t imagine how impressive the largest would look like in battle. Showing up with such a ship at a port would probably make people a little worried.

We went back on shore for some fighting. My orc, with mace and shield, versus the mage. Starting up close, he gave me immediate advantage and I ran around hitting him in the back and the sides (which gives bonuses to damage) while he was trying to unleash his destructive magic. After a few hits and him not being able to face and blast me because I was moving around too much he fell! I just killed the lead programmer of Darkfall!!! Well, I am sure he could have summoned all kinds of crap in his favor, but damn it felt good. I guess you don’t die immediately though. You fall on the ground and the player has a final choice to make whether to finish you or let you live. I did my finish move and he was officially dead… and looted. I even looked at his paper doll and bags from his computer to make sure he had nothing left. Yep, the game is definitely full loot.

Wrapping up

That was the end of the demo. It went so fast. I wish I had weeks to play it. Then the guys were extremely nice and took me to lunch. We ate Greek food and spoke more about the game. They’re very cool guys and I had a great time, but being on a tight schedule, it was sadly time to wrap it up.

Well, what else can I say other than it was great visiting Aventurine studios. I felt renewed optimism, not only for Darkfall, but for MMORPG games. Tasos, Claus, Kjetil and the others- they are an awesome group of people developing an awesome game and I can’t wait to play it.

Asp Lord of Orcs

The Lords of Death

Q: When fighting the mage around how many hits did it take to kill the mage?

Four or five. Whatever that’s worth. He didn’t seem to have any armor. I don’t know what mine and his skills were either. The mounts movements were very smooth and when I speared that bitch its death animation fucking rocked.

Q: Please give as many details about anything and everything you may have noticed when riding the mount.

The horse animation was smooth. I would say similar to Vanguard’s. Unlike VG’s horse backing up and rotating the DF horse is much slower. It’s hard to manuever it when there are other players or buildings in the way.

Q: How did you know that you had hurt your opponent?

I saw blood exactly where I hit him.

Q: And about ships you said you can approach an enemy ship. Did you see how?

The ship was in the water. I swam to it and climbed on board through some fishing net hanging on the side.

Q: How does he personally feel about the fact that he played a year old demo and may have something hidden from him?

I had fun. Tasos kept saying that the new version is much much better in every way. He seemed frustrated that they couldn’t show it off.

Q: Were there any chicks working there?

I saw one girl working there and she was cute

Q: How many people might it take to effectively crew a vessel in proportion to its size?

I would say depends on the number of canons. If you are planning to shoot from both sides of the ship at the same time then you would need a person for each canon, guards to defend the ship from boarding and a captain to maneuver the ship around. Archers on deck would be useful too. Depends on what you are doing you may add an assault party to your numbers as well.

Q: Was strafe and backwards speeds the same as moving forward?

They seemed slower.

Q: Did you get any impressions regarding 1 vs 1 balance with one person being on foot vs one person being mounted? What the person on foot a sitting duck unless some sort of cover/obstacle could be found? Or was mount to easily killed from under the rider?

I think mount isn’t too hard to kill. I didn’t feel mounted player to have much advantage when not moving. I think mounts advantage is more in the hit and run type of tactic not just standing in one spot. Unmounted player can go around you a lot faster than you can turn your horse.

Darkfall Developer Journal: "The Details"
Article by Tasos Flambouras (Associate Producer, Darkfall)

Having missed a journal, I have to say that you didn't miss a lot. We're officially neck deep into boring and repetitive tasks. As a status report, I'm afraid that you can almost take the last one and pretty much repost it with a few minor changes. When I made the rounds to get some juice for this update, Claus said that this is like factory work at this point, Henning in the art department said that they're in the boring final stretch, and Kjetil said that there's nothing exciting from the programming department. But I digress.

Overall, we're on track as much as we can be. We've been plagued by various physical bugs, health issues, equipment failures, but nothing seems to be able to keep us from the mind-blowingly boring tasks of QA, and adding content that have become our daily routine for the past few months. On top of all that, we're having a hell of a time getting some positions filled. We have a very high standard, and while we're getting a lot of applications in, it's not easy finding the right people.

Right now, it's all about the millions of little things.

We've been working on a lot of QA tasks such as testing areas, quests, how things flow, how things fit together and trying to make this perform like a finished product as much as possible. In testing quests we try to make sure that things are clear: If the quest-giver mentions a location for example, we may have to be sure that you can find it by adding signs, hints, making sure that there are roads to this location, and basically making it easier or more challenging depending on the specific quest. Adding content hasn't slowed down at all. There's a new quest implementation tool which is making things go faster.

So far we've been using the same placeholder grass you can see in screenshots and videos. Now we've got a lot of different vegetation variations in place depending on the area. We've also finalized our sounds which have replaced the placeholder sounds we've had until now. The new sounds are hard, gritty, and give a dark and violent feel to the game. In battle, they make you feel that you're in battle.

We're still working on tuning the monsters and this means everything about them from animations to attributes and skills. Recipes are still being worked on and we're still brushing up the player character animations. We've improved the interface used in enchantment so that it's more intuitive. Enchantment is basically a slot based system, where you plug components in the slots to get the effect you need

The world-builders have been rebuilding and upgrading locations. Depending on location, there's a 25 to a 75% rebuild. Capital cities are getting final optimizations for performance. Spawn points are continuously being placed.

The few exciting things implemented recently include some very cool defensive measures in city defenses, the portal system, and the clan bonus system. The portal system connects the important areas on the map through teleportation. This happens though a network of dungeons where the portals drop you off at. We've taken measures to curb portal camping, one of those measures is a random drop location within the dungeon. The dungeons are made up much like an FPS level and lend themselves perfectly to intense PvP. The clan bonus system is part of Darkfall's RTS-like features and it's connected to building. When a clan builds specific buildings, they may get bonuses for when they're within their clan city limits, like defensive bonuses, and in a few cases the bonuses can be global.

We were happy to read Asp's write-up about his visit here, and we were glad that he enjoyed his experience, seeing that he had a critical attitude towards Darkfall before. He said something in his preview that praised the graphics. Darkfall graphics have always been discounted compared to the features, so I enjoyed seeing this. It's a fact that the graphics look so much better live than in screenshots or video. Whenever I mention this, people are doubtful, and that's understandable. When they actually experience the game they're very surprised. Henning, our art director, is never satisfied with the look of the game, and he's always striving to improve it. It's a challenge with our small art team, but it's always good to hear what we know is true from a third party. Like with everything else, Darkfall needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated.

I know that this journal entry may leave much to be desired, but it's the calm before the storm that we're going through at the moment. It's the way things are at the moment and we're trying to give it to you straight. This journal has sadly served as the only Darkfall update out there, but we're trying our best to improve on that.

Thanks for reading.

Darkfall Developer Journal: Business Models & Clan Cities
Article by Tasos Flambouras (Associate Producer, Darkfall)

New ScreenshotI started pounding away at a development status report and again it looked the same as the last couple of journals. We've been through this, we're just grinding away as we have been. This is just as well because for the last couple of weeks I've also had to focus on some other-than-development matters.

A major concern right now is publishing. We're still looking at both options of self publishing and accepting one of a few specific publisher options. We have strong arguments for either scenario. We hoped we'd be done by now with a final decision and we're not, so to compensate we've been moving forward and working on setting things up as to not waste any time. We've actually come a long way and we should be able to settle on what's best very soon.

Asian publishers have always asked us to look at their preferred business model, which is giving the game away for free and making money from selling advertising, items, and services. This is how most MMOs operate in Asian markets. Darkfall of course with the full loot and the player crafted items doesn't lend itself well to this business model. We're starting to see more and more of this in the west as well, with several recent examples, and I can't help but wonder, and prompt a debate if possible, how western audiences view this. I'll add a strong disclaimer as to avoid any misunderstandings: This is NOT to say that we're even considering this for the N. America and Europe, or for Asia for this matter, so please don't start speculating, or worrying that we are. Something I read about a very large publisher wanting to experiment with this in the west made me want to ask for some feedback about where you see the market going in the near future.

New ScreenshotGetting back to some Darkfall update material, I've noticed that a lot of people in the community have been asking about clan cities so during the process of testing, we built one, got some screenshots of it, and BT Oren wrote a brief presentation to give you a feel on what clan cities are all about:

Dayar Rock
This city was carved out of the rock of a lonely mountain which rises from the wind-blasted wasteland plains of Cairn, one of Agon's less fashionable continents. It is the ideal stronghold for a clan who value privacy and security, and who don't mind the obscure and unstrategic location, or the relative lack of nearby resources.

Strength in Stone
If defended by a well-organized clan, Dayar Rock will present a formidable challenge for any invader. Four mounted cannons and two guard towers overlook the sole entrance into the city, and an invading force that makes past these defenses, will then be faced with two further lines of wall, both presumably bristling with defenders. Inside the main cavern, any last stands will be greatly aided by two intruder-blasting guard towers.

In addition to its defensive strength, Dayar Rock has a stern, rock-hewn beauty that is worth fighting for. A waterfall tumbles into a dark pool in the center of the main cavern, which is adjoined by a labyrinthine network of tunnels that could serve as a hiding place during times of crisis.

New ScreenshotBuildings and features
Dayar Rock features six residential houses, which means that its potential population is slightly above average for a clan city. In its present incarnation, the town also possesses a mage guild, a fighter's guild, a farm, a church, a barracks, a workshop, a smithy, a post office, a general store and a bank. Several of these buildings feature vendors and other NPC's that are controlled by the clan leadership. Given the size and strength of Dayar Rock, it is unsurprising that its clan keep is fully expanded and at maximum strength.

Dragons and Minotaurs
Dayar Rock lies in the region of Northeastern Dayar, which is a barren and lonely place. In fact, the city's only neighbors are a semi-nomadic hobgoblin standard who are in the process of establishing a fort on the outskirts of the region. Some way to the east lies a large minotaur citadel, while a tribe of extremely belligerent Cairn Giants live to the north. More spectacularly, the region to the west is dominated by a Fire Dragon called Oathbreaker, who is one of the most powerful creatures on the continent of Cairn.

Thanks for reading,

Tasos Flambouras

0.0 space, in EVE terminology, is everywhere in Darkfall. No safe zones. This isn't to say the PvE aspect of the game isn't well developed. It is. So much so that NPC mobs roam the landscape, build cities of their own, horde wealth in their camps that they loot from slain players and other mobs, and much more. There are even high end raids for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

It's just that Darkfall has put quite a bit of effort in making sure the game world is entirely governed by players, and you're given quite a bit more to fight over (and the tools to do it with) than any game has furnished for its players.