Fallen Earth Beta - Version 1.5 - May 18th

Fallen Earth™ Game Version Notes

Latest Version: 1.5
May 14, 2009


Tutorial

* Fixed the "Raising Rifle" tooltip to tell player to look at the Attributes window.
* Changed Elena to console the player when they die in the tutorial.
* Changed the ATV in the tutorial to now face out of the tunnel.
* Fixed the White Crow to properly attack during the Enforcer tutorial mission.
* Fixed any goal confusion if the player grabs the medical supplies before finishing off the tutorial's Lighbearers mission.
* Changed the Enforcer NPCs in the tutorial to only react to healing if the player gets credit for it.
* Fixed the incorrect LifeNet location for Midway when the player leaves the tutorial.
* Fixed the issue where sometimes when trying to heal the Enforcers in the tutorial, the system would say that your view was obstructed.

Graphics

* Implemented tree canopy shadows as an advanced post processing effect.
* Fixed issues with gloss and alphablend materials.
* Fixed a new issue with some armor hiding part of the body when being unequipped.
* Fixed a possible crash with freeing some resources.

Items

* Overhauled the process for managing and saving items. This should fix the majority of item loss issues including vaults, vehicle storage, player storage, mail, auctions, trading, etc. Any new items that disappear after this patch should be reported immediatly using /bug. Previous items that have been lost will not be restored by this fix.
* Fixed an instant crafting exploit.
* Corrected the core attribute on Thermal Control knowledges, which would have stopped most of the Thermal Control injectors from working properly.
* Added Machinegun Ammo Schematics to Ballistics trainers in Picus Ridge, Post 23, Thorne’s Bluff, Gaia, Blackhill, and Chemtown.
* Set up the Mutagenics mutation injector knowledge books to function correctly, though all the related recipes are not entered yet.
* Added trophy reward items for the following missions: Silence the Thunder (Embry Crossroads), Finally Some Good News (Odenville), Gray's Postscript (Sunshine Corners), Lost City (New Flagstaff), Sound of Thunder (Oilville), Treachery and Lies (Blaine), Destroy the Beast (Brigg's Point), Go to the Devil (Devon Township), Sibling Rivalry/Carbon Copy (Old Kingman), Into the Hive (Spider Hill), and Outside the Box (Trader's Flat). These items can be equipped in a player's trinket slot to grant additional bonuses to skills and attributes.
* Corrected the skill requirement for Stanch Wound, Vol 2.
* Changed the skill required to make Medium Gunpowder and Heavy Gunpowder.
* Rebalanced the Camper's Hand Axe to grant +4 to a player's Nature tradeskill rather than +6.
* Changed the benefit of the Light Projectile Avoidance Vest.
* Removed numbers from the descriptions of many Enhanced Armor items, as those numbers are visible elsewhere in the tooltip.
* Changed the skill required to make the Crude Gas Mask.
* Corrected the Armor Use required to equip the Crude Filter Mask.
* Corrected the skill required to use and skill required to make the Pitchfork.
* Adjusted the weight of Crude Healing Drugs and Crude Pain Killer.
* Rebalanced and corrected the statistics of the Sickle and the Scythe.
* Corrected the Crossbow Schematics recipe to use a Ballistics facility.
* Corrected Crude Pain Killer to be usable while moving.
* Corrected Pierce Armor, Vol 5 to teach the correct knowledge.
* Corrected Reckless Attacks, Vol 3 to teach the correct knowledge.
* Corrected all three volumes of Reckless Attacks to match the name of the knowledge they teach.
* Added Death Toll gear and Death Toll merchants to conflict towns and open PvP areas.
* Corrected the fit of belts, jackets, and vests for male and female character models.
* Corrected medium shoulder pads and bracers to now fit over all shirts and jackets.
* Changed male and female bolt-on shaders from phong to normal tangent to fix glowing objects.
* Optimized and improved fourty-seven various objects as needed. Reduced polys, corrected UVs, repainted and shrunk textures, and overall improved visual performance.
* Fixed any items that restack when being equipped that could have been deleted from the player's inventory.
* Changed items with Stack Count > 1 to now try to distribute over players worn equipment first if possible.
* Fixed a bug where an item equip attempt deleted the item if more than one required slots were equipped.
* Changed equipping items so items are now put back into the sack if the wear attempt fails because all virtual slots were filled.
* Fixed a case where free sack slots were required to equip item if items being unequipped was just unholstered.
* Fixed an exploit with buying from merchant with items near the maximum stack count.
* Fixed a stacking bug: if the item was non-virtual and told to stack anywhere, it would only stack on one item before just placing remainder in first open slot.

Vaults

* Fixed a bug where regular vault items could unintentionally be put into the clan vault.
* Changed vaults so “No trade” items can no longer be put in the clan vault.
* Adjusted item withdrawals from the vault to now take into account the size of the items stack count for weight checks.
* Fixed a bug where if you dragged a non-tradeable item to the guild vault it would look like it disappeared.
* Fixed a guild vault issue dealing with "first time empty" vaults and "non-empty" vaults being opened back and forth.
* Fixed a guild vault and regular vault update mismatch when switching between multiple guild vaults and regular vaults while keeping the window open.
* Fixed a bug where if you dragged a non-tradable item to the guild vault it would appear to disappear.

Mutations

* Fixed mutations so when applying a self-only effect while having an NPC targeted will no longer play the particle effect on the target.
* Fixed negative mutations so they are no longer capable of being cast upon the player casting the mutation.

Chat

* Fixed a bug with the profanity filter where an unfiltered message could potentially be overwritten by a filtered one.
* Changed the Home and End keys to now move to the beginning and end of the typed area without needing the Shift. Pressing Shift + Home/End will select the text instead.

Vehicles

* Fixed a bug where players could create horses or vehicles while already having one active in the game.
* Fixed a bug where disabled horse or vehicle movement states were being reset from disabled to idle when added to the game.
* Fixed the disabled mounts so they will animate correctly and won't let you initiate a mount.
* Fixed an issue with the vehicles weight shift not displaying properly sometimes.
* Fixed the issue where spawning a horse next to a building made your horse spawn inside that building.
* Updated vehicles/horses so they will not be "forced out" while still in the game.
* Fixed an issue with "camping" vehicles/horses.

World Bosses

* Assigned a number of special abilities to the Chupacabra and adjusted his stats.
* Adjusted Sasquatch's stats and fixed a problem that caused the White Crow in that encounter to have no stats.
* Adjusted Geiger's stats and made the different phases of radiation scale better in damage. Adjusted the text to represent the transitions on radiation damage more clearly.

NPC AI

* Adjusted the NPC AI so some NPCs will no longer strafe or go prone.
* Adjusted the NPC AI so some outdoor NPCs have a shorter aggro range.
* Fixed a case where questors could have the wrong mission icon over their head.
* Adjusted NPC "Prone" aiming.
* Fixed bug for NPCs reverting to their generator default orientation whenever nearing "home".
* Fixed an issue with NPCs who cannot reach players while attacking will no longer jump around near the player, they will return to thier respawn point after several attempts to reach the player.
* Creatures who return back to their starting locations will now face their "default" positions.

Audio

* Fixed horse run sounds.
* Updated the LifeNet Restart sound in tutorial. Now uses both two-dimensional and three-dimensional sounds.
* All male NPCs have default combat sounds: aggro, hit, and die.
* All female NPCs have default combat sounds: aggro, hit, and die.
* Added player hit and death sounds for both males and females.
* Added more randomization to the hit sounds.
* Increased creature volume.
* Increased footstep volume.
* Improved the overall mix of audio in game.
* Fixed mobs so they will again aggro on players after returning home.
* Fixed mobs so they will travel back to their home location after losing aggro on a player.

Creatures

* Removed the strafing behavior from sandworms.
* Changed the DPS on Underdwellers to slashing damage to match their animation.

Conflict Towns

* Changed brains on conflict town guards so stationary guards will not seek out patrol paths except for Fender Gate.
* Fixed tiered conflict town merchants so they don't repeat items on their top tiers.
* Corrected an issue with conflict town guards not tiering up certain attributes properly.
* Changed conflict towns to allow factions to retain half of their control points (CP) after the town switches to a neutral state. This does not apply to the previous controller, whose points are reset to zero. Points will still be reset to zero when the town is switched from a neutral state to a controlled state.

Combat

* Changed the reticule to a circle for melee and shotguns. Also, the shotgun now has a larger radius for hitting an opponent.
* Updated the over-the-shoulder camera mode and adjusted the offset a bit so it doesn't go on top of the player at some angles.
* Prevented player combat if the player is under an effect where combat is disallowed.

Teams

* Fixed a bug where team event ownership was not transferring on team leader changes.
* Fixed team invites to always give the correct error message if the player is already on a team.

Skills

* Corrected the Inconspicuous effect at all ranks to drop threat properly from hostile NPCs.

UI

* Fixed an issue with the Actions so they now show up correctly when the window first opens in expanded all modes.
* Fixed an issue where the pin for item displays would get stuck.
* Minor updates to the equipment, container and vault windows to fix the scrollbar sliders and center the paperdoll.
* Mission window saves between session and doesn't always starts hidden.
* The lower level actions option is off by default.
* Changed the conflict town window's display to read only and can no longer be deleted.
* Fixed the Esc key to properly close the windows and menus that should be closed with Esc.
* Enabled hotbar actions to be able to be swapped.
* Fixed an issue with the item stack was not correct after attempting to split a stack by dragging failed.
* Fixed a bug that prevented the player from opening the mounts window after talking to a garage or stable manager.
* Increased Social Window 'Who' to show 200 players.

General

* Fixed a bug where other players were occasionally not sent to the client.
* Fixed a bug with NPCs occasionally showing up with level 0 and no health.
* Fixed a bug when entering the game you could see NPCs doing large displacements.
* Fixed the knockdown animations to now play correctly.
* Fixed a bug where if the player was teleported into a level they could appear above the ground.
* Fixed an issue with jumping and turning in first-person mode that caused the player's and camera's direction to be different.
* Fixed a potential crash in the physics engine with how the system loaded maps.
* Fixed a new issue with players leaning forward at times.
* Fixed the issue with getting stuck in sliding doors.
* Fixed the bug where the player wouldn't get up after a knockdown effect wore off.
* Changed the equipping items error results to now display on the client.
* Added a help tip for when players mouse-over interactive objects, if the help tips are enabled.
* Fixed the issue where entering into the Character Selection screen, one or more characters would have no clothes.
* Fixed a bug where if you teleported into a level you could appear above the ground.
* In PvP if a player is knocked down the attacker will now see them fall.
* Added senders name to COD mail replies.
* Fixed issue with trading across server boundaries.
* Made numerous changes to the login system to improve performance under load.

Sector One

* Removed item Dilute Combustible from Science merchants in starter towns.
* Boneclaw
o Restructured the greeting conversation on the "Jannix's Raider Bounty" mission so Jannix Boneclaw actually gives it.
o Added a Social trainer.
o Changed the voice of the Nature merchant.
o Adjusted the placement of the Firearms merchant to avoid collision problems.
o Corrected the label of the Science merchant.
o Adjusted the pathing for Slug and Freshy in town to take a more reliable path through the town.
* Clinton FARM
o Added a Social trainer.
o Corrected the body model and torso bolton on the Firearms merchant.
o Corrected the label of the Cooking merchant.
o Added a voice type and corrected the level of the mission merchant Walt Paver.
* Coppermine
o Assigned a female voice to the Tradeskill trainer.
* Depot 66
o Increased the respawn time on Arbiter Larson.
o Labeled the Nature merchant as such.
o Added a Social trainer.
o Amended the “Professional Experience” mission to generate a bounty target with a randomized name.
o Added a voice type and corrected the level of the mission merchant Lonnie Deuce.
* Embry Crossroads
o Labeled the Horse merchant as such and assigned him a voice.
o Assigned the Weapons merchant a female voice.
o Added a Social trainer.
o Corrected the body model and torso bolton of the stable manager to use townsperson models.
o Corrected three conversations pointing to the wrong missions in the Archive Coalition book management missions.
* Highway Bridge
o Corrected the XYZ for the "Water Under the Bridge" mission.
* Linewood
o Moved the Medicine merchant to level ground to keep her feet from being buried.
* Midway
o Added a Social trainer.
o Changed the name of a item needed for the “Vega's Gamble” mission to “Kingman Tires Ballpoint Pen” and clarified the mission text to explain where all items can be obtained.
o Relabeled the Weapons and Science merchants correctly.
* Mumford
o Lowered stats on the target creature for the "Humble Pie" mission.
o Removed a duplicate knowledge book from the Alpha mutations trainer.
o Added a Social trainer.
o Optimized the town to improve performance.
* Needle Eye
o Corrected the XYZ for the "Field Work" mission.
* North Burb
o Changed the reward for the "Reaching" mission so as not to duplicate the reward on the second step of the "All Sides" mission chain.
o Added a Social trainer.
o Corrected the voice types of the Geology and Firearms merchants.
o Placed Armor and Science merchants in the town.
* Odenville
o Placed local scavengers into an empty camp.
o Lowered a floating harvest node in Blackwind Caves to the ground.
o Assigned random and hidden names to craps interest object NPOs.
o Corrected the labels of the Science and the Food and Drink merchants.
o Added a voice type and corrected the level of the mission merchant Dee Benzer.
o Changed the voice of the Weaponry merchant.
* Oilville
o Replaced the large generator with four small ones in Gully Dog camp to keep the NPCs off the roofs of the tents.
o o Edited the dialogue string on Chunky Gurbles interest object to remove a gap.
* Old Kingman
o Placed a target object for the "White Hot Poker" mission.
o Added a voice type to the Mutations merchant.
o Corrected the name of the Weaponry merchant.
* Pass Chris
o Placed a missing target object for the fifth step of the "Method's Madness" mission chain.
* Simsonville
o Increased the numbers on the Throwback Stripling generators to ensure sufficient throwbacks for the "Dust and Ashes" mission.
o o Optimized the town to improve overall performance when in the area.
* · Slaughterville
o Corrected merchant inventories, labels, and voices.
* South Burb
o Corrected details on the Firearms merchant to make him wear his shirt.
o Changed the model on the Armor merchant to one with shoes.
o Moved the Horse merchant to level ground to keep her feet from being buried.
o Edited dialogue text on the second step of the "Forging Enemies" mission chain.
o Removed an extraneous Ballistics facility.
o Optimized the town to improve overall performance when in the area.
* Terance
o Deleted a harvest node that was spawning dead gully Dogs in the ceiling of the Old LifeNet Facility level.
o Assigned a female voice to Sue Walker.
o Assigned a voice to Cindy Prentiss.
o Added a Social trainer.
o Added a mounted travel flag to the outskirts of the town.
* Trailer Park
o Corrected the head of the Science merchant to avoid her having a mustache.
o Relabeled the Mutagenics trainer.
* Trumbull
o Corrected the voice types of both the First Aid and the Science trainer.
* Watchtower
o Lowered a floating harvest node.
o Corrected a facility flag on the Nature facility.
* Zanesville
o Added dialogue to the town's interest object.
o Flagged interest object NPCs as invulnerable.
o Assigned a female voice to the Science trainer.
o Optimized the town to improve overall performance when in the area.

Sector Two

* Revised merchants in all of the sector's towns.
* Haven
o Adjusted Brother Galyan's stats to reflect his boss build.
* Barret Manor
o Flagged the "Postmaster's Decree" mission to clean up items.
o Reviewed and corrected trainers.
* Devon Township
o Reviewed and corrected trainers.
* Picus Ridge
o Placed the generator for the deliver target of the "Learning to Teach" mission.
o Placed the missing target object for the fourth step of "The Path of Purity" mission chain.
o Assigned a voice to Marisa Tuttle.
* Sunshine Corners
o Raised harvest node to terrain surface.
* New Flagstaff
o Corrected an issue with the LifeNet pod in New Flagstaff.

Sector Three

* Chemtown
o Removed a duplicate string from an interest object's action.
* Dieseltown
o Optimized the town to improve overall performance when in the area.
* Fracture
o Fixed a typo in the "Stomp" interest object dialogue.
* Park City
o Added a mailbox at the Waffle Warehouse.

Fallen Earth Beta

Recently I was invited to the Fallen Earth beta.
I downloaded the game and played about halfway though the intro. That's all I could take. The game in it's current state is unplayable for me.

I really hope they can turn things around before it is released. A good MMOFPS has never really been done.

The main problem that I had with the game was that the weapons have no impact and there was a large delay between shooting someone and the damage registering. This leads to a lot of wasted ammo. I didn't bother getting out of the intro area because I was already frustrated.

I will update the blog at a later time with more information if the game turns around.

Darkfall Release Information.

Darkfall Release Information (pricing, dates, pre-order, etc.)

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

Posts from Darkfall Closed Beta - Post 1

Disclaimer: I did not make this post and I have not tested the claims.

Posted by Homebrew:
Arrow Crafting UNPRACTICAL - Detailed Explanation

Since, I've always enjoyed archery, I decided to look into bowyer because it is quite needed to really level up archery high. I found bowyer to be faulty when it comes to crafting arrows and the economy (and since crafting arrows is half of the skill, that's a big deal). Right now it is not practical to make arrows. The output of arrows is nowhere near worth the input of time and resources. I did a timed test in order to figure out how bad it really is.

Before I start explaining I'll just list all of my current skills related to this test.

Sprint: 63.3
Rest: 67.2
Logging: 62.7
Mining: 65.6
Smelting: 42.0
Woodcutting: 42.6
Bowyer: 26.3 (this is strictly from making arrows only, have not begun to craft bows, this is from making over 2,000 arrows)


So my test is broken up into two intervals: gathering and crafting. There are many faults when it comes to gathering as well as crafting.

I had all required tools on me before I started this test. I went as quickly as possible, by sprinting when I changed location and only resting once between mining and logging.

1. Mining: I Mined one full node of metal at a success rate of 57.3%. 51 out of 89 attempts I received a resource. Now out of the 51 resources I got from the node only 38 of them were Iron ore. It took 89 casts in order to deplete the node. This took about 16 minutes.

It took one full stamina bar to empty the node, I then rested in order to gain back stamina so that I could then start getting the timber I needed. I then sprinted to the closest tree.

2. Logging: I mined one full node of timber at 77.27% success rate. Like the iron ore, I received 38 timber and 13 resin. It took 66 casts in order to deplete the node. This took about 12 minutes.

This left me with 35 timber and 35 iron ore to work with. It requires 5 timber to make 2 wood. It requires 5 iron ore to make 2 iron ingot. So, I was left with 3 extra materials of each for a later time.

After logging, I sprinted to the smelter which took a couple minutes, to turn the iron ore into ingots. This is a fairly quick task. It requires 5 iron ore to make two ingots. This took about one minute.

I then sprinted to the workbench to turn the timber into wood. This is like smelting and only took a little over a minute.

After I had 7 iron ingots and 7 wood I was finally ready to craft the arrows. I was already at the workbench where you use the Bowyer skill. It takes 1 wood, 1 iron ingot to create 10 arrows. Now, for every skill up to this one it is a 10 second cast (excluding gathering mastery skills). The arrows skill to cast takes 20 seconds. So this took over two minutes to turn the manufactured materials into arrows.

The end result: 130 arrows. (One failed)
The Duration to make: 43 minutes 12 seconds.


Now there are many factors as to why this is ridiculous. For starters, the cost of arrows to buy from npcs is 2gp per arrow. I could have spent 260gp and bought 130 arrows instead of spending 43 minutes to make them.

Also, players are frequently selling arrows 1:1. So technically, I could buy 130 arrows for 130gp instead of spending 43 minutes making them.

Another option would to be farm the arrows. In 43 minutes time I could easily get 130 arrows from farming goblins or gnolls. With this farming, I would make ample money off of weapons and coin drops as well, which could then go towards buying more arrows if I wanted to, thus making crafting arrows obsolete.

I could even just farm any mobs that don't drop arrows and still make more than enough money to buy 130 arrows.

Even pking is a more viable way to get arrows. The money income from pking is pretty high right now and will escalate greatly come release when the world is more full. It's be easier to go out and pk someone for their arrows and gear and sell it, then buy arrows from the npc.

So in conclusion, it is not viable to spent time and resources making arrows. It is better to put the time and materials into a different skill like weaponsmithing. It does not benefit the person whether they are crafting the arrows to use them or to sell them.

Also a note, making arrows to level up the Bowyer skill in order to make better bows is a completely different story. In that case, crafting arrows would serve the purpose of leveling up the skill as well to make bows. This thread is just explaining the practicality of crafting arrows in order to use or sell them.

Some of my personal thoughts on what needs to be changed to fix the problem.

First I think arrows don't cost enough from the npcs. I think their price should be raised to 3 or 4gp each. If players could trade arrows for more than 1gp each it would be more practical to spend time making them. It would also create a better economy, because players would rather buy cheaper arrows from crafters than pay 3-4gp from the vendor.

Also, the time it takes for the entire process is too long. This game has been attempting to not be a grindfest. But when in 43 minutes time you can only create 130 arrows? I don't think anyone will really disagree that this is too much of a grind. Many other crafting skills are in the same boat, this is just the one I decided to go ahead and test. I think at the very least the cast time for arrows should be reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds. Another thing that could be done is instead of making 10 arrows at a time using 1 resource, maybe 20 arrows could be made at once.


-------
A side note on gathering: I haven't figured out what the success rate has in relation to gathering. As you know I have 62.7 logging and 65.6 mining. What you don't know is I also have 100 herb gathering and 85 mastery herb gathering. I haven't noticed a single change in the success rate from lvl 1 herb gathering to lvl 100. So my question is, what is the point of a higher herb gathering level? Also, it seems some skills have better success rates than others. Now I know one node from my test isn't enough testing to determine the success rates of gathering, but still 77% in logging and 57% in mining? The skills are both at about the same level.

Build 119 Notes

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New Patch

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A new patch has been released.

Fixes and updates in this patch includes:

• The bug that would freeze the GUI have been fixed
• Bug where text on the HUD would be clipped (like player names) after a resolution change has been fixed
• The bug where the chat box would get focus after pressing a hotkey for a window (e.g. the map) has been fixed
• Fix for a bug where you would get extra speed if you swam along the bottom
• Swim skill will now skill up again.
• Some bugged quests have been fixed
• Bug where you would lose footstep sounds after a respawn has been fixed
• Timed quests will now display their countdown timer
• Small graphics update to crafting window
• Sync issues have been worked through and fixed. The problem of players jumping around on your screen should be severely reduced. We need your help to verify this.
• More fixes has been done to the Clan and Journal window. If you still can't see them, please send us a bugreport with logs. (Also give it some time, since we are running in debug mode).
• Holes and inconsistencies in the world have been fixed
• Monster spawn rate has been increased and number of monsters in spawns has been increased.
• A.I. has been tweaked
• Changes to the chat system:
  • /tell has been enabled as an alias for /msg
  • /clan has been enabled as an alias for /say_clan
  • /officers has been enabled as an alias for /say_clan_officers
  • /party has been enabled as an alias for /say_party
  • Global chat has been disabled for players
  • /race has been enabled. This will send a chat message to all members of your race
  • /alliance has been enabled. This will send a chat message to all members of your racial alliance. (e.g. a human using it will send a message to Humans, Dwarves and Mirdains. An Ork using it will send a message to Orks and Mahirims. )
  • /calliance has been enabled. This will send a chat message to all Clans where both your clan and the other clan has declared each other as Allies.
• Changes to damage, consumption of reagents and more has occured in these spells:
• Blast in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Eldritch Sphere in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Heal Self in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Health to Mana in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Lay On Hands in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Mana Missile in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Mana to Stamina in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Stamina to Health in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Flesh Curse in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Frailty in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Heal Other in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Infliction Shield in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Infliction Ward in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Missile Fury in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Rend in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Shrapnel in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Venom in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Firebolt in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Dragon Breath in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Fireball in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Inferno in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Ball Lightning in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Acid Arrow in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Icicle in Water Magic has been tweaked
• Disease in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Exhaust in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Insect Swarm in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Palsy in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Pestilence in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Sluggish in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Stupidity in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Some magic schools has had their charging effect tweaked.
• Updates to the world (Worldbuilding)
• Several fixes to rare client crashes.
• We turned off more heavy logging and verification on the client side. Do, however, bear in mind that we are still running servers + clients in debug mode.

Darkfall Report, Part 2

I have been in the Darkfall beta for a while now. Over a month, less than a year.
During that time I have put roughly 50 hours of game play time over various characters and I have decided that I won't be playing the game on release. This is just my personal feeling and the following is my opinion on the game and why I won't be playing it. I will try to leave out any critiques on things that I know are bugs or are planning on changing (such as multi-hits to turn rogue).


Things that I like about Darkfall:

• Huge world, I haven't explored even close to all of the areas of the game yet. (Maybe 30%) Some of the areas I have seen are just amazing.
  
• Graphics are ok, they aren't great, but you get used to them. Not as bad as some people would make them out to be.
• Crafting is a substantial part of the game and seems almost necessary.
• Combat feels like Oblivion or some other FPS fantasy game.
• Open PvP. No hand holding and no safe areas (kind of) is how it should be. Danger around every corner.
• Huge amount of skills and spells.
• You get a feeling that you are in a virtual world, not just a game.

Things that I dislike about Darkfall:

• It almost feels like real-time when you are playing. Nothing is sped up, everything you do takes a very long amount of time. This was fine back in the days of EQ when I had countless hours to play a video game, but today I have a family and a career.
  The free time that I do have I don't want to spend doing tedious, repetitive tasks like fishing or mining. The combat is also very slow paced. It is much better when in a group, but it's so easy to hit other people on accident a lot of more experienced players refuse to join PUGs.
  Joining a guild and adventuring with those people is your best way to go when the game is released.
• Server sync problems. Maybe it's just because there is no NA server and this problem will fix itself when there is one, but playing from Seattle I have a lot of issues where even if I am swinging through someone I will miss them, or I will watch my arrow go through someone. Then other times I will be facing the opposite direction and hit someone or my arrow won't be even close to someone running around and it will hit them.
  This can be very frustrating when I know I should have won a fight.
• Monsters spawn very slowly. This seems to have been sped up last patch but I haven't had a chance to do any thorough testing yet. Before the last patch though monster spawns were ridiculously slow.
• Not enough content. The game is really about PvP and GvG warfare. The content that I have experienced is sparse and pretty boring (read: NPC interactions).
• The game does not know what it wants to be when it comes to grouping. The mechanics of the game are very solo friendly. Skill based, non-targeted attacks, sparse loot, hard to target heal spells. All of these would lean toward a solo friendly game. Unfortunately when you actually are in the game it is much better to group, even though it can be very frustrating at times, because this way you have people to watch your back and you can grind mobs without worrying about getting an add and dying. If the game wants to be solo based they need to make monsters easier, if they want it to be group based they need to change it so you can't attack your group members and increase the loot drops.
  Right now the game just doesn't fit anywhere. Maybe that's their idea? If it is, good luck to Aventurine.

There you have it, a quick look at some of the likes and dislikes I have for Darkfall. This is in no way a complete or specific list, I was just thinking off the top of my head.