RedMorgan's Column: What Darkfall Expects of You

Our new columnist, RedMorgan, has published his first column today here at Darkfall Warcry. Today he talks about how now in MMO's everyone is a hero and how Darkall is different then that.

RedMorgan:
So how do these games become more accessible to the drooling masses? Easy! Just implement grinding, level treadmills, restrict any and all competition whatsoever. These systems are intentionally in place to prevent anyone from over-achieving or failing. I recently saw a WoW ad that said "Come join 8 million heroes!" Suddenly every single player is automatically a hero?

Click below to read more!

Often when we talk about Darkfall Online, we're really talking about what it isn't more so than what it is. Many consider it the anti-WoW, a game so fundamentally different from the norm that it forces us to reconsider what a MMORPG really is. I felt compelled to look into the driving force behind the status quo games, to see what exactly Darkfall isn't. What I came across is an influential presentation given at the Game Developers Conference of 2003, and what I learned is that most MMORPG developers don't expect much from you at all.

"Small Worlds" is the name of the presentation given by the great game designer Raph Koster. Koster was the lead designer of Ultima Online, creative director for Star Wars Galaxies and also did some work for Sony Online. His presentation defined many already well-implemented practices of MMORPGs , and the logic behind these practices is quite revealing... and well, sad.

A large portions of this presentation focuses on the notion that player skill-based MMOs are bad business sense, because not everyone is equal. Koster cites something called the Pareto principle, which states that 20% of the people consolidate 80% of the power in any group. That means that the 1/5 of the community in a skill-based game will be vastly more skilled and powerful than the other remaining players. Also, competition is apparently a bad thing for e-social lives-- if players recognize that certain other players achieve more in a ladder system, it supposedly disrupts the balance of the social network.

What we have here, is a very prominent figure in the industry espousing a view, to other industry representatives, that if you don't cater to the plebeians, you can't expect to be successful. It's kind of like the McDonald's strategy applied to online gaming. They serve cheap crappy food, but anyone can afford it and you probably don't even need to wear a shirt to get into the restaurant. Maybe the service and the quality of the meal sucks, but it's familiar and you know you'll get the same crappy service all across the board. Billions get served.

So how do these games become more accessible to the drooling masses? Easy! Just implement grinding, level treadmills, restrict any and all competition whatsoever. These systems are intentionally in place to prevent anyone from over-achieving or failing. I recently saw a WoW ad that said "Come join 8 million heroes!" Suddenly every single player is automatically a hero? Essentially, most MMOs are designed so anyone can hop on a game, gain levels and pay $15 US per month for their instant hero status.

These designers don't want to reward players for their achievements. They just want to make every mouth-breather who logs on think that they're special, for fear that they'll quit playing at any sign of disappointment. And even worse, they expect us all to be morons.

Critics say that Darkfall won't have a big enough niche to survive. That we'll start playing and suddenly long for the coma-like gameplay that only grinding can bring us. Because of this, the industry has been unwilling to take a chance and put up a 5-Star restaurant in a McDonald's neighborhood. The time has come for our community to prove them wrong.

As players, we have high expectations for Darkfall. We all hold it to a higher standard, but I think its greatest feature is what Darkfall expects from us. We're expected to prove ourselves through skill, tact and valor. We're expected to understand that not every day can be a good day, and every now and then we'll experience failure. We're expected to not quit if we're killed, looted and our cities are burned to the ground. We're expected to earn the title of "hero" through our actions and not our credit cards. Darkfall respects me as a player, and that's why Darkfall has, in return, earned my respect.

By now, we all know what Darkfall is, but what Darkfall isn't? The word patronizing comes to mind.

Permalink

I felt pretty patronized when I first read about Darkfall. :\

Perhaps the word is vindicated.

Really good article. Red totally nails it in regards to other games. MMO's seem to radically restrict the level of competition that can be expressed in a meaningful fashion. Little loss, a lot of gain = big subscriber numbers. However, I think recent examples in other games show that this is beginning to get old for the community quick. There seems to be a greater demand for more competition, a greater opportunity to prove yourself in a meaningful fashion, and a real thirst for what could best be called "the Human element" of MMO gaming: the natural desire to make someone else feel bad to make yourself feel good. The other thing was how games make it easy and set the player up in the situations where failure is difficult and success seems inevitable. While there is little sense of loss or "failure" as Red puts it in MMO's, there's also a correspondingly little sense of achievement or victory when you succeed. When everything is practically handed to you on a silver platter, it makes it meaningless. Hey, I just finished this really hard quest, or made it to the end of the dungeon! Time to add my name to the endless list of players who've accomplished the same thing. If everyone is a hero, no one is.

It's really funny that for games that promise you the opportunity to join a world filled with heroic players, very few of those players are actually deserving of the title "heroic"; in most cases, it would be more like "horrible". The true "heroes" are always decided by the community.

Good read. Koster's presentation is the obvious seed of destruction for the entire genre. How many young and impressionable developers that witnessed that atrocity have been working on "new" projects over the last 4 years. Let's hope not all did.

Although insightful, I feel (and yes, anyone who knows me knows I was going to bring this up) that calling DF an RPG is wrong. If anything, it is more FPS. It could be that Koster's impetus (the Pareto principle whatever that is) is flawed. It's not that people need to feel as uber-hero-rific as the next guy, it's that for $9.99 a month they want to "win". In the case of FPS games (CSS, BF2 etc.) success is tied to stats, kill/death ratio, worthless digital badges and medals, and this latest crop of shoot-em-ups have proven to be a reliable source of money for game developers. According to one site BF2 sold 2,250,000 copies by summer of last year. If every copy sold for $25 that's over $50 million. I believe that if Darkfall can successfully meld persistent empire building, social networking, and fps gibbing into a MMO, they will not only break the mold, they will build a new one.

Amen brother, peach the gospel.

Wow, best column to date.

EXCELLENT article RedMorgan!! I agree this is one of the best columns I've read, you need to post more.

I now name Raph Koster "Lord of The Carebears". No wonder Ultima Online went to crap with people like him in charge and giving out false information. DarkFall is going to continue where Ultima Online left off and FAILED. This game is going to have the other companies shaking in their boots. Particularly WoW.

Now all we need is for it to be released so we can in fact, prove this point.

There was an excellent response to this article on Scott Jennings' blog.

Basically.. you don't mess with Raph Koster. :)

The problem is that a game with winners and losers can never beat World of Warcraft in that way. UO had no competition for most of the time when it was hardcore PvP, so there was no alternative. But if Darkfall is going to have hardcore competition, what will it do when all the people who lose the competition go to World of Warcraft because there they don't have to be losers any more - and because WoW is more established, anyway? (And of course, when all the losers leave, the competition on Darkfall goes on, and _someone_ always has to lose in a competition, so some of the previous winners will be forced to become losers..)

"Pay $15 and be a hero".. well, why should I pay Darkfall my $15 if I don't get to be a hero?

hyphz:
There was an excellent response to this article on Scott Jennings' blog.

Basically.. you don't mess with Raph Koster. :)

The problem is that a game with winners and losers can never beat World of Warcraft in that way. UO had no competition for most of the time when it was hardcore PvP, so there was no alternative. But if Darkfall is going to have hardcore competition, what will it do when all the people who lose the competition go to World of Warcraft because there they don't have to be losers any more - and because WoW is more established, anyway? (And of course, when all the losers leave, the competition on Darkfall goes on, and _someone_ always has to lose in a competition, so some of the previous winners will be forced to become losers..)

"Pay $15 and be a hero".. well, why should I pay Darkfall my $15 if I don't get to be a hero?

The problem with your thought is that your not thinking about what happens after you die. Do you lose ex? No. Do you lose gear? Yes but its not worth a lot and you can get more from your clan bank that is supplied by clan crafters. Do you lose money? Yes but if you're smart you keep 75% of it in your bank.

So what happens? You just respawn at a city and you get back out there to play more. Yes people will die but killing one person is worth 5 deaths.

hyphz:
There was an excellent response to this article on Scott Jennings' blog.

Basically.. you don't mess with Raph Koster. :)

The problem is that a game with winners and losers can never beat World of Warcraft in that way. UO had no competition for most of the time when it was hardcore PvP, so there was no alternative. But if Darkfall is going to have hardcore competition, what will it do when all the people who lose the competition go to World of Warcraft because there they don't have to be losers any more - and because WoW is more established, anyway? (And of course, when all the losers leave, the competition on Darkfall goes on, and _someone_ always has to lose in a competition, so some of the previous winners will be forced to become losers..)

"Pay $15 and be a hero".. well, why should I pay Darkfall my $15 if I don't get to be a hero?

The issue is mainly the attitude that Darkfall has to have more subs than WoW to be profitable, which isn't true. EVE doesn't have as many subs and it seems to be doing fine. If Darkfall captures enough people to fill it's server, it would be making a profit. If it fills many servers, it will make even more profit.

Basically, for all the people who leave Darkfall for WoW because they can't handle it, there will be 10 more who join because they think they can handle it. Darkfall will be a highly competitive game, the competition for success will be brutal. There will be the great players, but they will be killable just like they were in UO.

As for paying 15 bucks a hero to be a hero in WoW, most people are delusional if they think they are truly "heroic" in that game. At best, you're a nameless clone in a sea of people who all have the same gear and talent builds. There is no uniqueness in WoW, which drastically cuts down on what makes a hero a hero. At least in Darkfall, you pay 15 bucks a month to have a chance of being something tangible to the server. Your options are huge, much larger than WoW. WoW has 2 possible "bests": best PvE guild, and best PvP guild.

Darkfall will have: "Best Pirate Clan", "Best Bandit Clan", "Best PK Clan", "Best Anti-PK Clan", and so on down the list of things to catalogue. You have a better chance here of being respected than you do in WoW.

> The problem with your thought is that your not thinking about what happens after you die.
> Do you lose ex? No. Do you lose gear? Yes but its not worth a lot and you can get more
> from your clan bank that is supplied by clan crafters. Do you lose money? Yes but if
> you're smart you keep 75% of it in your bank.

I lose *time*. I lose time where I could have spent being entertained (by being a hero), and instead had to spend time not being entertained (by getting killed over and over again).

> The issue is mainly the attitude that Darkfall has to have more subs than WoW to be
> profitable, which isn't true. EVE doesn't have as many subs and it seems to be doing fine.
> If Darkfall captures enough people to fill it's server, it would be making a profit. If it
> fills many servers, it will make even more profit.

But the problem is that no matter how many people are on Darkfall, the player base can _never_ become stable, because at any given moment approximately half of those people must be "losing". And if losing isn't fun, they'll leave eventually, but the half figure will stay intact. Even if you do get 10 new people joining, still half will lose, it's just that the half will be a bigger number.

> As for paying 15 bucks a hero to be a hero in WoW, most people are delusional if they
> think they are truly "heroic" in that game. At best, you're a nameless clone in a sea of
> people who all have the same gear and talent builds. There is no uniqueness in WoW, which
> drastically cuts down on what makes a hero a hero. At least in Darkfall, you pay 15 bucks
> a month to have a chance of being something tangible to the server. Your options are huge,
> much larger than WoW. WoW has 2 possible "bests": best PvE guild, and best PvP guild.

If it's based on skill, though, I don't really have a "chance". The skills that I, the real person, have are laid down in advance before I even buy the game. They will be either better or worse than others on the game, there's no real "chance", only hidden information.

And the whole point of not being competitive is not needing to be "best". I'm happy to accept I'll never be best guild anything on WoW, simply because I don't have that much time to put into a game, but I can still have fun killing orcs.

hyphz:
> The problem with your thought is that your not thinking about what happens after you die.
> Do you lose ex? No. Do you lose gear? Yes but its not worth a lot and you can get more
> from your clan bank that is supplied by clan crafters. Do you lose money? Yes but if
> you're smart you keep 75% of it in your bank.

I lose *time*. I lose time where I could have spent being entertained (by being a hero), and instead had to spend time not being entertained (by getting killed over and over again).

You'd lose more time with the gear grind in WoW. How many months of farming PvE or Arenas does it take to get a good character kitted out? I've heard estimates varying for 2-3 months. That's 30-45 bucks you spent not having fun. In Darkfall, if you're prepared, you could probably spend maybe 3-5 minutes after each death. Assuming you roll with a decent group of people, you'd probably go quite a while before dying. Since gear will be pretty obtainable, I suspect most people will have a house filled with spare gears, and most clan members will likely have a guild hall with restocks for people. DF loot != WoW loot, which seems to be the most common 'knee-jerk' reaction cause towards full loot.

> The issue is mainly the attitude that Darkfall has to have more subs than WoW to be
> profitable, which isn't true. EVE doesn't have as many subs and it seems to be doing fine.
> If Darkfall captures enough people to fill it's server, it would be making a profit. If it
> fills many servers, it will make even more profit.

But the problem is that no matter how many people are on Darkfall, the player base can _never_ become stable, because at any given moment approximately half of those people must be "losing". And if losing isn't fun, they'll leave eventually, but the half figure will stay intact. Even if you do get 10 new people joining, still half will lose, it's just that the half will be a bigger number.

You're assuming that the same 50% of players who are losing will be forever losing at the game, which is not true. This is the problem with gamers in MMO's; they are forever seeing themselves as massive losers who accomplish nothing and never anyone who wins, even occaisionally. And in that case, yes, a game where you lose a lot when you lose is going to suck because they, the player sucks. But for the victor, you gain so much more which is where the satisfaction comes in. We know from FPS games and RTS games that losing doesn't mean "IM GONNA QUIT THIS GAME AND GO TO [skill-less game here] RIGHT NOW!" It usually means that the player will end up in a huff and log out for a while possibly, cool down, come back, and score a win. Or they'll go get some friends and try again. How much satisfaction has it been for a person to gank you in World PvP in WoW, and then you see them later and kill them? Imagine that sense of satisfaction 100 fold for vengeance in Darkfall. Players will get better. Anyone who flees Darkfall is, frankly, a coward.

> As for paying 15 bucks a hero to be a hero in WoW, most people are delusional if they
> think they are truly "heroic" in that game. At best, you're a nameless clone in a sea of
> people who all have the same gear and talent builds. There is no uniqueness in WoW, which
> drastically cuts down on what makes a hero a hero. At least in Darkfall, you pay 15 bucks
> a month to have a chance of being something tangible to the server. Your options are huge,
> much larger than WoW. WoW has 2 possible "bests": best PvE guild, and best PvP guild.

If it's based on skill, though, I don't really have a "chance". The skills that I, the real person, have are laid down in advance before I even buy the game. They will be either better or worse than others on the game, there's no real "chance", only hidden information.

And the whole point of not being competitive is not needing to be "best". I'm happy to accept I'll never be best guild anything on WoW, simply because I don't have that much time to put into a game, but I can still have fun killing orcs.

You can get better at a game. Don't expect that anyone you see "pwning" in Darkfall did it overnight. I fully expect it to take a few months of work in Beta before we see the first beginnings of a truly cohesive team that can consistently accomplish their goals. Some people will be dominant for sure, but they are dominant in every game that has even 1% of skill come from the player, and Darkfall is a game with many checks to ensure that a broad level of skill is required: a good head is more important than having fast fingers, and that tactics will be worth more than pure numbers.

In any case, it's all a matter of preference. The Darkfall devs already accept that Darkfall will not be a game for everyone. What Darkfall will be is a game where you can truly interact with people on a free-form gamescape without needless rules and restrictions. I can accept that my clan might never be more than a whisper in the pages of history. But I am willing to make the jump to Darkfall because I know that my clan has absolutely NO chance at being more than a whisper in any other game. I can kill Orcs in any fantasy game, but if the experience of killing those Orcs in Darkfall is more interesting and exciting, then I know where I'll be, winning or losing.

hyphz:
> But the problem is that no matter how many people are on Darkfall, the player base can _never_ become stable, because at any given moment approximately half of those people must be "losing". And if losing isn't fun, they'll leave eventually, but the half figure will stay intact. Even if you do get 10 new people joining, still half will lose, it's just that the half will be a bigger number.

3,032,304 people logged onto and played a Steam FPS game last month. If losing isn't any fun why do so many people play these games? They lose several times every few minutes.

> You're assuming that the same 50% of players who are losing will be forever losing at the
> game, which is not true. This is the problem with gamers in MMO's; they are forever seeing
> themselves as massive losers who accomplish nothing and never anyone who wins, even
> occaisionally. And in that case, yes, a game where you lose a lot when you lose is going
> to suck because they, the player sucks. But for the victor, you gain so much more which is
> where the satisfaction comes in. We know from FPS games and RTS games that losing doesn't
> mean "IM GONNA QUIT THIS GAME AND GO TO [skill-less game here] RIGHT NOW!"

In FPSs and RTSs, you're playing with a different set of players every game. Maybe the new set of players, you'll do better in. A few weird people might play tournaments of these games and come up with champions but nobody has to care about them. In an MMO, although you might fight a different group of people regularly, the champions are right on the front pages and often have game priveleges as well, so you have to care about them.

Also, MMOs tend to have parade advancement. In other words, winning now helps you win more later on (you level up). If someone gets left out of that advancement cycle, they're doubly penalised - not only have they had a bad time so far, losing, but they're less likely to win than their cohort, which probably includes many of their friends.

> How much satisfaction has it been for a person to gank you in World PvP in WoW, and then
> you see them later and kill them? Imagine that sense of satisfaction 100 fold for
> vengeance in Darkfall. Players will get better. Anyone who flees Darkfall is, frankly, a
> coward.

"Players will get better." What about the guy who killed me? Didn't he get better too? And he was better than me to start with?

The point still stands that even if people _do_ get better, in any game with PvP, FOR EVERYONE WHO WINS SOMEONE HAS TO LOSE. If you have a situation, and it's rare, where the winners and the losers are constantly switching over and playing musical chairs, then that just leads to frustration and quitting because they can't achieve anything. (I remember that happening in PlanetSide for a while - the more areas you had captured, the easier it was for someone to sneak in at the back of your lines and capture the bases back again. Then they introduced the linkage rules to stop that. Then I invited 4 friends to try PlanetSide with me and after we all got killed by 1 guy when we got out of a car, 3 of them quit and never played again.)

hyphz:
>
In FPSs and RTSs, you're playing with a different set of players every game. Maybe the new set of players, you'll do better in. A few weird people might play tournaments of these games and come up with champions but nobody has to care about them. In an MMO, although you might fight a different group of people regularly, the champions are right on the front pages and often have game priveleges as well, so you have to care about them.

Both FPS and RTS games have good communities however. People have their own greats, and they hold them in high regard. Champions are everywhere, both real-world and e-world. Some are just less visible.

I've never seen an MMO that gave game advantages that were unobtainable by the majority, or were given purely as gifts for being excellent. Champion players in an RTS might get a new skin for a unit, or FPS players might get a "limited edition" gun for their efforts which isn't any better than the other gun. MMORPG's almost always tend to reward gear however, so I can see that as being an issue, however most of this gear is readily obtainable by everyone if they invest time as well. Champions still exist here anyway though, whether they are called Champions by the game or by the players themselves.

Also, MMOs tend to have parade advancement. In other words, winning now helps you win more later on (you level up). If someone gets left out of that advancement cycle, they're doubly penalised - not only have they had a bad time so far, losing, but they're less likely to win than their cohort, which probably includes many of their friends.

MMO's parade advancement due to the "Carrot on a stick" design, where players are constantly shown a goal and never given the means to obtain it since the goal forever moves. Winning will still mean something in Darkfall, just like losing will still mean something. However, I don't see "losing" as being a huge game-breaking reason in Darkfall. Rearm with your spare gear, learn from your losses, and return to the fight.

"Players will get better." What about the guy who killed me? Didn't he get better too? And he was better than me to start with?

The point still stands that even if people _do_ get better, in any game with PvP, FOR EVERYONE WHO WINS SOMEONE HAS TO LOSE. If you have a situation, and it's rare, where the winners and the losers are constantly switching over and playing musical chairs, then that just leads to frustration and quitting because they can't achieve anything. (I remember that happening in PlanetSide for a while - the more areas you had captured, the easier it was for someone to sneak in at the back of your lines and capture the bases back again. Then they introduced the linkage rules to stop that. Then I invited 4 friends to try PlanetSide with me and after we all got killed by 1 guy when we got out of a car, 3 of them quit and never played again.)

They will not usually get as big of a "RL experience" gain as you will. Assuming it wasn't a straight up no-contest fight, you'll have learned vital information from the encounter. You'll learn what abilities should have been used, how you should have approached the situation, and a number of other details. Where-as they will have already had the necessary skills to beat you. Generally, only by losing can you improve yourself. Beating up noobs all day doesn't make you a better player. But being repeatedly trashed by veteran players can teach you a lot of important (if frustrating) lessons.

The main thing is, any contest where there is a winner and loser will always have someone winning and losing. By your arguments, we shouldn't have ANY sports at all in this world because winners and losers are constantly changing sides so no one can achieve anything. Players change teams, change their team tactics, change their playstyle slightly, get better, etc. Yet we have lots of competition on the planet, because it is ingrained into our very existence. And people achieve stuff all the time anyway.

I have an excellent story to counter your own Planetside story. After much arm-twisting, my friends eventually managed to pull me into playing Halo. I was beaten again and again, and ridiculed by them. Did I quit in a huff and run off? Nope. I borrowed the game and the console for a week to practice. The next week, I flattened them repeatedly. How? After every death, I learned a little bit more about their tactics and movements. Every minute I spent logged in, I learned how to move more smoothly, how to fight more effectively, and even more importantly, due to my losing, I had a desire to win and kick some serious ass. It all paid off.

The main lesson is, if you're going to quit the first time you lose, then you're not cut out to play a competitive game, because any sports player will tell you, any race car driver will tell you, and any gamer will tell you, you'll be losing quite a bit. Often times, I'll go like 8 games of WC3TFT in a row and lose. But I learned something from every single loss which makes me a better player overall.

@Red:
Good article.

First, Raph Koster's opinion that competition destroys the community is absurd.
Look at StarCraft. Arguably the most competitive and skill-based game online today, and yet it has had a continuous and highly active community since 1997. 10 years.

Second, even if he is right about the 20%/80% thing, that's fine.
The 20% with the cojones can fight it out in Darkfall, and the 80% can stay in WoW and grind for sets of virtual armor.

Let me point something out that obviously.. some of you don't comprehend. This game is NOT pvp focused.. this has been talked out until people's ears bleed. The freedom of the world gives it the pvp standard. Sure it will be a part of aspects of the game but by far not the only one.

People will come to this game for its roleplay capabilities that WoW won't even be able to touch. They will come because there will be a real ever changing world to explore. They will come to create things crafting and some will come to compete in pvp. You've got the people who want to build cities and if you've ever played a simcity game you know.. baddddd stuff happens to your city.

The game gives you plenty of ways to AVOID pvp and plenty to indulge in it. Lets use the WoW example.. oh my I'm level 25 minding my business.. oh my god.. level 70.. run.. wait hes got a mount uhm uhm uhm.. HIDE.. wait crap I have a name title he can see me behind that tree.. I'll fight back thats right.. oh crap he has tons of levels over me and gear theres no way in hell to win.. Now lets do the same example Darkfall style. Oh crap theres a guy running towards me I think he wants to kill me. I can run and turn that corner and hide in some grass.. or wait I can turn and fight because I have a chance to win.. or wait I can plain run he doesn't have a mount he can summon out of thin air so I'm pretty sure I can outrun him *The stamina system will not allow you to spam your attack while chasing someone*. Which situation would you rather be in as a noob.. hmm.. even if you don't lose anything in WoW that level 70 could be there as long as he wanted.. and he could camp your spawn just to be evil. That level 70 could easily take on every single level 25 in that entire area and win. But you know what.. no one in Darkfall will be doing that cause 5 noobs > 1 pro. Unless there are sheer overwhelming numbers you always have a chance in Darkfall even if your skills are that of a 2 year old if you've got 3 friends who just started you can still take on that pro and win.

As for the strong getting stronger.. how in the hell do they get stronger killing people with worse "gear" than them.. They will be seeking people with better stuff so they can get better. I have more to say but this post is long enough already.

anyone that plays a game with no risk and just to be a winner is so gay. Thats way uo was so exciting and it was scary and fun to leave town or be a murder hiding on roads and such. its crazy to me that people dont wana play wit that excite and all they wana do is lvl and never die. whats the poiint? eerythings the same there no excitement or challenge. i just dont get it. I dont get how everyone doesnt see that UO way by far bette then any other game. i want wow graphics and world wit old school UO. that be unreal

I agree very much with the post that started this topic. Wow is not fun. It is an endless quest of grinding, first to reach 60, now 70 and then to equip them with good gear its grinding some more... only now youve got to grind in unison with 39 other people. I am really looking forward to having fun in an MMORPG game again. I have not had "fun" since the Darktide server in AC1 got "nerfed" a few years back. When that game first came out, I made a character on Darktide, and wow what fun that was! I never in the 4 years I played it, made a character on any of the carebear worlds. There was no point in it whatsoever! It was the raw element of free for all pvp that kept that server/game so interesting, and very fun at the same time. Going into town, going to grind, going to quest meant you had to be fully buffed 24/7. Take a chance not doing so and get killed fast. I am following Darkfall Online eagerly, waiting for AC1 Darktide to be taken to a new level, and enable players (not mindless drones, aka WOW) to have some fun again. :)

Antimodes:
I am following Darkfall Online eagerly, waiting for AC1 Darktide to be taken to a new level, and enable players (not mindless drones, aka WOW) to have some fun again. :)

We're all waiting with you.

Take my advice: Don't hold your breath.

absolut187:
Take my advice: Don't hold your breath.

I have waited 8 years for TF2. What's wrong with waiting?

I have to say I agree 100 percent. The problem is every game is a carbon copy of another game just with a diffrent header. I think players are becoming bored with this trend and are in desperate search that breaks from the norm.

For this reason alone I expect Darkfall to do very well in the market. It is offering the long term accomplishments that games like swg, vg, and uo did with player housing and a meaningfull crafting system, but focuses on more PVP and going PVE light. Games like these seperate themselves from the main stream expectations, and have a longer loyal customer base than games that have subs bounce back and forth like a ping pong ball.

Indeed Darkfall will lead tired old gammers, and new gammers to a "New" experience of MMO gamming.

I came here for more information about Darkfall and what do I get? Verbal bashing on other games. What type of collumn is this?

You and many others go on and rant on what you personally don't like about another game, and compare your own personal mixed feelings about that X MMORPG to define that Darkfall will surpass it in its terms. We don't care if you dislike Wow or any other MMO's. Some others stereotype the World of Warcraft players for what they are, and yet I am not highly impressed with this collumn and many of its followers thoughts and what they have to say. Now that I see what type of personalities that will roam in Darkfall, I am less pressed to know more.

Don't come and shun others choices, claiming that yours will be the best and everyone else should follow that path. If I play a game, its for my own good, as long as I am satisfied with it. If you choose otherwise, good for you. Just remember, some games are popular for many reasons, and there will always be those shmo's that hate it simply because of how well they did.

-- While I still have high hopes for Darkfall, this is a terrible collumn and I beleive that RedMorgan should rethink before posting something like this.

I can almost understand why you are feeling like that, damnificus, but i cannot agree with you. This post explains very well the kind of attitude that DF players will have to support. If you don't like, don't play it. Consider this colloun as a kind of a warning (apparently, it's working!).

I grew tired of WoW and the likes of it. I want to be able to change the virtual world and have a true impact on others. I just hope i am ready to accept that others can make my virtual life miserable. Maybe i'll suck playing this game, and never be the ubber high-level player i was in WoW. But oh boy, i want to try this game! I am actually very curious to see how the community will develop, since it requires a lot of maturity from players.

Giev DF, plix!