If they changed a lot from the closed beta. I was staff on the forum since I joined up when they first announced they were making a game like 8 years ago. It wasn't what I expected. I didn't like the gameplay. I check the forums every week or so, no longer an admin or staff or anything. But I hear a lot of things changed. I might try it out for a month to see if it's worth it this time.
Yeah, that's because they worked on gameplay before graphics. A lot has changed now. As from how much it's changed since close beta. I don't really know how much has changed.
Darkfall has a number of features that set it apart from the majority of MMORPGs:
* Unrestricted PvP, with no safe zones, only protection by NPC guards in racially controlled cities. Indiscriminate player killing results in changes in alignment (see alignment section below), which in turn has severe in-game consequences. [4]
* A character advancement system devoid of player levels and classes, however there are certain Prestige Classes that can be earnt. The majority of player capabilities are determined by the possession of skills, which improve in response to in-game use. For example, all weapon proficiencies, the ability to swim, cast spells, ride mounts, and climb various obstacles are all skills that can be learned and improved through in-game use.
* A real-time combat system that includes FPS-style manual aiming & blocking.[5] Ranged combat and general play will be viewed from the first person perspective, while melee combat will be third person perspective. There will also be no 'player radar' or floating names with which to identify players or NPCs [6], and inflicted damage and the health status of actors are indicated through visible damage, blood-spray, and audio cues. Furthermore, friendly fire is always in effect, so missed melee attacks, misfired arrows, as well as area of effect offensive and healing spells affect both friends and enemies.[7]
* Complete looting. All of a player's items become world lootable on death (see looting section below), and virtually all props and items in the game will be player-craftable.[8]
* Cities that can be built, sieged, captured and destroyed by players [9], as well as individual player housing.
* Player mounts and mounted combat, which can be captured and killed by players.
* Naval warfare, with the ability to create, board, capture and sink player controlled ships [10], including player-mediated ship-ship and land-ship combat.
* Real-world physics, including inter-character and projectile-character collision detection. Projectiles (spells, arrows, cannonballs etc.) can be evaded or blocked in real time. Players can be pushed or blocked by other players, NPCs and/or explosions [11].
* Dynamic, physical weather, including variable, directional winds. For example, foggy or rainy weather can severely limit sight range and high winds greatly influence tidal wave amplitude and ship movement. Day and night cycles are based on a realistic planetary system of 2 orbiting moons, producing dramatic sunrises and sunsets.
* Enhanced monster behaviour and AI.[12] Monsters do not simply stand and swing at players until dead; they may employ sophisticated combat tactics based on their capabilities, social behaviour, and intelligence level. For example, intelligent monsters will preferentially target healers, casters, and/or weakened players. Monsters do not have fixed spawn locations or sizes - monsters form their own communities, may construct buildings and/or may relocate to new areas in response to being hunted by players. Monsters may also fight other monsters in their region. [13]
* A non-instanced game world capable of supporting over 10,000 concurrent players per game instance,[14] including explicit and dedicated support for large-scale (> 200 player) battles at playable frame-rates. [15]
* Prestige classes are special classes, like Paladin, Assassin, Gladiator, Enchanter, etc, and it has an optional path that you may choose for your character to follow. Picking a prestige class will in most cases give the player a few special skills, a few special spells, and you will have a certain status. There are limitations, tradeoffs and restrictions playing a prestige class character, for example, a Druid may never use metal armor after they are initiated, and Paladins have to give half of their earnings to their church. Prestige classes may be interesting to some players, and some classes may give you an extra reason to role-play, or maybe give you an edge in combat or help you out with crafting ability. There will be many interesting prestige classes for you to try out but don't forget that picking a prestige class is not final - you can change class later, with some minor penalties. The easy (lazy) route would have been to make picking a prestige class final, but Aventurine want to keep Darkfall as open ended as possible. Source
Development history
To date, over 600 screenshots, 9 official game videos, and approximately 230 single-spaced pages of developer journals, articles and community Q&A transcripts are available, charting Darkfall's development progress over 7 years. By comparison to its contemporaries, Darkfall has had quite a chequered development history, having been widely lauded by gamers for its wide-ranging gameplay and hardcore approach to PVP, as well as having been accused by some as vapourware, due primarily to its long development time, occasional retractions of beta announcements, and unconventional approach to the game's public relations and advertising.
On August 29, 2001, Razorwax announced the development of Darkfall and launched its official website [16]. The Razorwax development team was based in Oslo, Norway, and initially consisted of five members: Claus Grovdal (Lead Design and Producer), Ricki Sickenger (Lead Tools and Game Logic Programmer), Henning Ludvigsen (Art Director), Kjetil Helland (Lead 3D/Client Programmer), and Erik Sperling Johansen (Lead Server Programmer). Approximately 14 months later, in October 2002, the Razorwax team was integrated into Aventurine SA, a newly-formed company based in Athens, Greece, ostensibly created for the continued development and subsequent commericialisation of Darkfall [17]. When the Razorwax team and the Aventurine team had their first meeting in Athens, a member of one of the teams joked that Razorwax should relocate from Norway to Greece due to the lower taxes and cost of living in Greece. Eventually, the two teams realised that this idea actually made very good business sense,[18] and by December 2002,[19] the relocation of Razorwax, now Aventurine, was finalised.
In September 2005, a signup page for a closed clan beta was made available on the web. This beta never eventuated, however a 1.5 minute Darkfall gameplay video was released on February 2006 as recompense to the community [20]. A later statement from associate producer Tasos Flambouras explained that a decision had been made internally to devote additional money and resources into expanding the scope of the game.
Darkfall's first major public revelation of Darkfall was at the game convention E3 in 2006, and while Aventurine did not have a publicly playable version at the time, various industry journalists were shown a standalone demonstration version of the game [21]. From June 2006 onwards, just after E3, the Darkfall development team began releasing bi-weekly developer journals and community question/answer articles, published on the game forum site Warcry.
An announcement on the 11th July 2006 stated that preparations were being made to begin beta [22], although Aventurine stated it did not have a publisher for Darkfall at this time, and that they were considering the possibility of self-publishing the game [23]. Six months later, on January 17, 2007, Aventurine announced they were in active discussions with prospective partners, distributors, publishers, and technology providers, and that a fully functional and stable beta build was running on remote servers [24].
On the 30th January 2007, Aventurine released their second official gameplay video, consisting of about one minute of ingame footage demonstrating real-time melee combat, mounts (including mounted combat), spellcasting and naval combat [25]. In May Aventurine gave an update on their progress towards beta, announcing that their internal target date for beta was for summer 2007 [26]. A later update, on 2nd August 2007, stated that beta would not start until negotiations with possible publishers were complete [27].
On February 22, 2008, Aventurine released a "location test video" depicting various NPC and player-crafted city locations in the game [28]. Later, in April, it was announced that Darkfall was feature-complete [29], and in May, that "... our launch date will be inside 2008, with the public beta preceding it by a few weeks. This is official and internally we're a lot more specific, but pending an announcement, we cannot say more at this time" [30].
In June, Aventurine confirmed they had signed with Greek company AudioVisual Enterprises to distribute Darkfall in Europe [31], and this was confirmed by AudioVisual in a stock market announcement made to the Greek stock exchange.
On August 29, 2008, Darkfall's official beta was announced as the final scene of a 17 minute gameplay video, which demonstrated numerous aspects of the game, such as small and large group PVP, including small and large group mounted combat, ship sailing and naval combat, magic and archery, and vehicular combat, creative use of in-game physics and magic, crafting, banking, 3 different PVE encounters demonstrating mob AI, and city building and sieging.
Since September, Aventurine has been conducting a limited public hardware test of Darkfall as the first phase of public beta, with the next unconfirmed stage of beta scheduled to begin on or around November 10, 2008. On October 16th, 2008, Darkfall was publically presented at Athens Digital Week. This event was unofficially reported by a member of the Darkfall forum moderators during this event, including a 30 minute video of Darkfall played live on stage.
1:killah> what time is it in israel
1:Mr. 420> j** o'clock
1:killah> lool
1:Mr. 420> lol
1:Mr. 420> idk, i suck at math
1:Mr. 420> need a calculator
1:killah> i dont even kno how to work a calculator
1:Mr. 420> oh, thats right, u count beans
1:killah> ROFL
Lenny> Dameon angell, quit running back and forth from PL's house to yours.
Lenny> Oh wait, you don't run.
Democrat> LOL
Democrat> hes a floater
Democrat> he cant even shift irl
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