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Date Posted: 13:00:38 02/02/09 Mon
Author: Mercenarey
Subject: Darkfall closed beta

I am currently in closed beta, and I wish to give you a small report on the game.

Let me start by saying, that this game is overall phenomenal. There is always SOME issues, and I probably viewed it differently in my dreams some years ago, but I have also learned over time to have more realistic expectations.
Nothing is perfect, so we will just have to look at the good and the bad, and make an overall evaluation on that - and be grounded in reality.

The good:
---------

1: FPS
Darkfall has first-person combat. You have to actually aim your spells and arrows in the game. There is no highlighting another character and then autoattack, having the dice decide whether you hit or miss. This is all up to you: If you have poor aim, you will lose.
In this regard the game is closer to FPS games (and Planetside) than to the standard WoW-clones, that have flooded the market the last 4-5 years.

2: Stealth
You don't see the name above people's heads. That is right people! You don't even see their names above the head (you can hover the cursor over them to see name though). This means, that you can successfully stealth by using the surroundings. You can hide in the bushes, use trees to cover your advance (or retreat), you have to avoid hilltops to avoid being spotted from afar.
Stealth will be due to REAL skill. It is up to YOU to move right, and if you do it successfully, you can easily sneak up on someone before he knows what hits him - especially if isn't aware of his surroundings. There is NO stealth skill! There is NO invisibility!
You want to be a rogue? Go be it - but be it in how you play and how you dress (dark and green clothes will help you stealth!). There is no helping you by an artificial skill, that magically turns you invisible.

3: Combat:
The combat is simply great. I love to actually aim where I hit. With the right melee attack (a slash from side-to-side), you can even hit multiple targets. You circle-strafe to make multiple opponents hit each other. You position yourself so your melee opponent is situated between you and any opponent archers (and he tries to move so his archer friends get clean shots). At times you will run like a bitch (in the best UO style, hehe) when you are being overwhelmed.
I haven't done any real PvP yet, so this is what I gleaned from PvE.

4: AI:
The AI is good. Monsters are challenging. They run off when in trouble, and they can bring friends if there are any nearby. You can suddenly find yourself in deep trouble, from what looked like a piece of cake, because of friends being called.
The AI is not just some dummies standing there, waiting to hand over the loot, it will fight you to the best of its ability. And when you win, you will really have earned it.

5: No instancing.
That is right folks. There is NOT ONE INSTANCE in the entire world. Not one. No dungeon. No house. Absolutely nowhere.

6: Huge world
The world is huge. It will take you 2-3 hours to run from one end of the main continent. And there are 3 smaller sub-continents, and a huge number of islands on top of this. The world has been measured to be something like 40-50 times bigger than the WoW continent we started on.
At the same time, the world will hold a minimum of 10.000 players (WoW had 3.000), and they have even hinted at the possibility of up towards 30-50.000 players in the same world.
Massively Multiplayer has finally come into its own right. Only EVE can boast anything resembling this scale, both in play area and in number of simultaneous players.

7: Stable game
The game is very stable. In 14 hours of playing, I crashed once. The server came down two times more (they are testing alot of stuff, and have to take it down now and then), though you got a notice, that it was the server that had shut down (not crashed).
The client ran without a problem. I was non-stop at or above 60 FPS, and my settings were fairly high. Overall, the engine is a pleasant experience.


There is probley more that I have forgotten. If something is very important, I will add it in answer to this thread.

The bad:
1: UI:
The user interface can at times be quite clumsy. Some of the actions you perform in the game, can be very cumbersome, making it almost impossible to carry out certain actions in the heat of battle.

For example, to cast a spell, you have to do this:
Equip magic staff (you ALWAYS need a staff to cast), arm staff, load spell onto staff, shoot.

In a fight I started out with my staff (easy, because I got plenty of preparation time), then I switched to weapons when the opponent came in close, but at some point he fled, and I wanted to go back to nuking him in the back. But I simply had to give up, because it took so long (and I didn't know the keys by heart), and I had to reequip weapons and sprint after him, which resulted in plenty of monsters going on me.

2: Crafting:
Crafting is actually not bad as such. It is alot like UO. But this is 2009, not 1997, so copying crafting raw from 12 years ago isn't really very innovative in this day and age.
Both crafting and resource gathering beats the WoW-clones though - still I won't call it "good".

3: Graphics?
Well, graphics are not incredibly pretty. But IMO they are ok. They are plenty good for me, and once Im in the world, they just work for me. If that is the price for a game with this good gameplay and with this level of stability, then it is a very small price to pay.

I really have to dig deep to find anything negative to say. I gave a stab at what there could even remotely be. But Im really digging.


I will be pre-ordering without a second thought. This has been the best MMO experience I have had since UO (well, Planetside too, but that game was so different from "normal" MMOs).

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