Posts from Darkfall Closed Beta - Post 2

Are you having fun?

SentrySteve
Yeah, Darkfall is great fun if you play it in the right mindset. Set out in a small group with the intent of finding PvP and you'll probably have a blast. Do anything else, and the game is pretty shallow.

Ezion
Overall, I have to give this a QFT.

Some aspects of Darkfall are a blast, some are ok, and some are boring/downright frustrating.

Darkfall, as with any MMO, is a work in progress. It'll only get better, and it's got the basic technological setup to do it.

(If Darkfall becomes Trammel and you quote me on this, I'm going to have to kill you.)

emasame
he's right.
solo'ing is pretty boring and frustrating. if you go hunting with some buds it would be great fun though. i imagine it would be a little more difficult soloing once so many more people start playing come release.


Lachrymose
i agree 100%. going out with a group and doing pvp was the only time i really enjoyed myself. just the fact that you're doing largescale pvp is exciting. other than that though.. yeah, pretty shallow.

And to sum up.

Stigma
I'd have to say yes - I am having fun with Darkfall, but as it stands now I am very much doubting that it will be able to keep my interrest. Having actual FPS combat is such a huge lift to the game, but apart from that bit its just unfinished in so many areas.

The basic PvP is fun, even if its far from perfect, but to keep me playing its going to need to have way more than just one thing it does well - and right now I can't really see what that is.

The crafting is pretty bad. in complexity its about as simple as you can get it (lets be honest folks, it pales in comparison to any game with half decent crafting like EQ2) and is also grindy non-creative and non-interactive. Sorry, but clicking the "craft" button over and over dosnt count as interactivity... or fun. The economy that goes with it is also pretty much dead atm because of the above, and because there is no way to sell and buy properly. NPC merchants + maybye an ingame forum board for wanted ads would have solved this, but we currently have neither. Selling and buying is spamming racial chat and then hopefully getting a reply by someone who isnt halfway across the world. Finally the harvesting .... is fail. Sorry, but its probably the poorest, most unimmaginitive and grindy harvesting implementation Ive ever seen. its like they made this as a placeholder the first week and said "we'll replace that later with the good system" , but they never got around to rewamping it. Apart from the fact that you can harvest from allmost every normal tree and rock that is also the topography (wich does have a sort of "wow cool" factor to it) there is nothing good with harvesting.

The PvE is ... ok I guess? Way too many mobs have ten times the hitpoints they should have, and make my clicky finger fall off trying to kill them, and only 1% of Agon seems to be populated by anything. Apart from that the actual fighting of the mobs isn't bad. That part of it is actually more fun than pretty much any other MMORPG, but its not enough if thats all it can do well.

As for the rest that might give lasting appeal ... we ust dont know. None can comment on city building and sieging since noone has even come close to building a city up above and beyond a handful of basic buildings. I havent even seen walls in any city yet. The only thing I really can commend about regarding this is - Are they REALLY going to release the game with several of its core gameplay features like these totally untested except for possibly a handful of in-house people? That alone worries me.

Now, ALL of this I've taken in stride. I recognize a diamond in the rough when I see it. I said to myself - heck, even just a few more months would help this game a ton. Preferably more, but even just a few months would be great. Yet, just now we have had confirmed that 25'th feb is in fact the release date and it wont get pushed back. I have to say this news really really dropped me from the heights of optimism for this game to the abyss of depression. I just don't see how it can survive a launch at this stage. I was even so convinced they would never release it in this state that I was actually shocked and surprised when I heard the announcement about NDA drop and release info.

They will have a choice now:
- Keep the many broken and downright bad systems that make up the core of the game.
or
- Make, and keep making radical and totally game altering changes to the core game systems for months and probably even years after release, upsetting the majority of the players over and over in the process because the game rules keep changing.

Both are bad ideas and will leave many disillusioned. Most likely it will be a mix of the two, wich isn't any more satisfactory either.

Sorry, I'l go off into the corner to be depressed now...

-Stigma