Since the NDA has been lifted, I'd like to ask:
Why does it seem from many screenshots that some objects have this thick black outline to them? Is this perhaps some kind of graphical setting or is this normal?

Seems to be normal. Because of some of the shader and shadow effects, it'd be difficult to distinguish one thing from another (more so than it would be in real life) so I think it's intentional. Gives it a comic book feeling, though.

endaenditdunmater.

Gives it a comic book feeling, though.

Yeah, that's why I was asking =(

It's not that bad though. And it's rarer than you think.

Ah, another question, about flagging in PvP. I'm not quite sure I'm understanding it correctly. Flagging works one-way? So if I flagged myself by hitting on a "fellow", that person will not flag if they hit me back?
I'm too used to L2's style where if you hit someone that is not red, you will flag, regardless if they are flagged themselves or not. This makes it so if you start fighting someone, and they defend themselves and you still kill them, you get no penalty. If they don't defend themselves, or in other words if they don't flag back, you'll get penalty.
Seems to me that in Darkfall it's more like if you hit somebody first, it doesn't matter if they defend themselves or not, you're going to get a penalty if you end up killing them.
That's a little bit discouraging to PvP =/

That is a pretty terrible way to handle PvP flagging if that's actually the system in the game.

The game's flagging is kind of like justice: blind. And deaf, in this case. It doesn't care if they're defending themselves or even if the hit was accidental. If your sword or arrow or mana missile strikes another player who's not in your clan or on your team, you're rogue. If you kill them, you take an alignment penalty.

And before you ask, yes. There are all kinds of nice exploits for this system. The most common one is running in front of someone while they're PvEing and taking a hit on purpose, hereby forcing them to go rogue and making them killable without a penalty. I remember one useless douchefuck had repeatedly done this to me, and so I ended up killing him and taking the hit anyway. It was worth it, mostly because of this hilarious chat that came afterwards.

Hey, as far as flagging goes, I found this in the new patch notes.

* If you have positive alignment and attack another player with positive alignment, you will go rogue for 10 seconds
* Every subsequent attack towards a good player while on the 10 second rogue mode will make you go rogue for at least 2 minutes

EDIT: Also, this is unrelated, but you might want to take a trip down to the Darkfall Forums and look at the new patch notes. They sort of nullify a lot of bad beta tester info.

Huh, the flagging does remind me alot of what UO was like when I played that game:

Everyone started off "Blue" (it showed up when you moused-over to target and as the color of your name over your head) and if you attack/damage another Blue person you would go "Gray" for a certain amount of time; it didn't matter why you did it or if it was an accident.

Gray folks were open season, for anyone to take out with no penalty.

If someone killed a Blue PC they would turn "Red" (I remember it being a rather bright and angry red, too) for a certain amount of time. If you spaced the murders out enough you'd only go Red for a while at a time, but I think it lasted longer the more you killed and it didn't take too many killings to make it last forever.

Yes, people abused the system by trying to trick people into attacking them or wandering into active attack spells and the like.

Of course the NPC-run Thieves Guild you had to join to be able to steal had a cool little thing; you were actually Gray all the time as long as you were a member, but you only looked it in name/targeting if you got caught stealing or did something else to trigger it. :) Technically anyone could kill you at any time with no penalty, but they didn't necessarily know it.

Masked Brute:
Huh, the flagging does remind me alot of what UO was like when I played that game:

Everyone started off "Blue" (it showed up when you moused-over to target and as the color of your name over your head) and if you attack/damage another Blue person you would go "Gray" for a certain amount of time; it didn't matter why you did it or if it was an accident.

Gray folks were open season, for anyone to take out with no penalty.

If someone killed a Blue PC they would turn "Red" (I remember it being a rather bright and angry red, too) for a certain amount of time. If you spaced the murders out enough you'd only go Red for a while at a time, but I think it lasted longer the more you killed and it didn't take too many killings to make it last forever.

Yes, people abused the system by trying to trick people into attacking them or wandering into active attack spells and the like.

Of course the NPC-run Thieves Guild you had to join to be able to steal had a cool little thing; you were actually Gray all the time as long as you were a member, but you only looked it in name/targeting if you got caught stealing or did something else to trigger it. :) Technically anyone could kill you at any time with no penalty, but they didn't necessarily know it.

You've definitely never played UO.

Blue player attacks Blue player = attacker goes gray for 2 minutes
Gray player attacks Blue player = on engaging, gray player resets timer for another 2 minutes of being gray (criminal)
Blue player attacks Gray player = Blue player becomes gray only to Gray player for duration of combat
Blue player attacks Red player = Blue player becomes gray to Red player (no alignment hit for red if he kills attackers)

chaosloc:
You've definitely never played UO.

Lol, I don't know why but I found that hilarious.

UO's system was the best I've ever seen, and no game I've seen has come close to it.

chaosloc:
You've definitely never played UO.

It is fun to watch people make statements like this. A more reasonable response, if I was remembering wrong, might have been that I must be remembering wrong or something. As I played (way more than I should have) for over a year back in 1998 to 2000 and even met my now-wife through the game, I'll say that my post could be wrong but your statement certainly is.

That said, I'm just going to assume you've got an aggressive posting style and don't somehow think you've got an absolute knowledge about what I have or haven't done in the last ten years.

Blue player attacks Blue player = attacker goes gray for 2 minutes
Gray player attacks Blue player = on engaging, gray player resets timer for another 2 minutes of being gray (criminal)
Blue player attacks Gray player = Blue player becomes gray only to Gray player for duration of combat
Blue player attacks Red player = Blue player becomes gray to Red player (no alignment hit for red if he kills attackers)

While this is far more detailed than my post... it doesn't really contradict my general point. I wasn't focusing on what one person shows as to one other person, but how you appear to everyone else. Near as I can tell the above helpful details don't paint a different picture as far as that goes, though I wasn't aware that Red players didn't take the hit if they were attacked (only makes sense though).

As you obviously have got more of the details at hand, though, I have a question: Have the details of the flagging system changed over the years? I was given to understand that they had, both before and after I played, but the way you post makes it seem like they haven't.

Masked Brute:

chaosloc:
You've definitely never played UO.

It is fun to watch people make statements like this. A more reasonable response, if I was remembering wrong, might have been that I must be remembering wrong or something. As I played (way more than I should have) for over a year back in 1998 to 2000 and even met my now-wife through the game, I'll say that my post could be wrong but your statement certainly is.

That said, I'm just going to assume you've got an aggressive posting style and don't somehow think you've got an absolute knowledge about what I have or haven't done in the last ten years.

Blue player attacks Blue player = attacker goes gray for 2 minutes
Gray player attacks Blue player = on engaging, gray player resets timer for another 2 minutes of being gray (criminal)
Blue player attacks Gray player = Blue player becomes gray only to Gray player for duration of combat
Blue player attacks Red player = Blue player becomes gray to Red player (no alignment hit for red if he kills attackers)

While this is far more detailed than my post... it doesn't really contradict my general point. I wasn't focusing on what one person shows as to one other person, but how you appear to everyone else. Near as I can tell the above helpful details don't paint a different picture as far as that goes, though I wasn't aware that Red players didn't take the hit if they were attacked (only makes sense though).

As you obviously have got more of the details at hand, though, I have a question: Have the details of the flagging system changed over the years? I was given to understand that they had, both before and after I played, but the way you post makes it seem like they haven't.

Let me take that back, you've played UO but it's been a while and you're not remembering things how they were.

And yes, 2000 the flagging system changed quite a bit (mainly for murderers however).

ALSO:

Of course the NPC-run Thieves Guild you had to join to be able to steal had a cool little thing; you were actually Gray all the time as long as you were a member, but you only looked it in name/targeting if you got caught stealing or did something else to trigger it. :) Technically anyone could kill you at any time with no penalty, but they didn't necessarily know it.

Thieves aligned with the Thieves Guild were Blue to everyone, but were actually "criminal status" always. So if you knew, for example, someone was in the thieves guild you could attack them and they'd immediately change to a gray health bar and you'd take no alignment hit. They'd only actually show gray if you do this, or they had within the last 2 minutes performed a criminal act.

Thanks for the reasonable response, and clarifications. It has been a while, and actually typing that last post reminded me exactly how damn long it's been.

I miss alot about UO, I hope at some point to find another game that hits the same stuff I liked about it. I'm not so sure Darkfall is the game to take that spot for me, but maybe in a few months I'll see.

Masked Brute:
Thanks for the reasonable response, and clarifications. It has been a while, and actually typing that last post reminded me exactly how damn long it's been.

I miss alot about UO, I hope at some point to find another game that hits the same stuff I liked about it. I'm not so sure Darkfall is the game to take that spot for me, but maybe in a few months I'll see.

www.runuo.com

I don't know about anyone else, but if EA made a classic shard for UO, I'd play it.

Chi:
I don't know about anyone else, but if EA made a classic shard for UO, I'd play it.

I'll link it again: www.runuo.com

There is a sponsored server that is run mimicking classic. It's 100% authentic UO from 1999 days. Believe the link for that server is http://www.uodivinity.com/

The Hybrid server was my cup of tea: http://www.uogamers.com/

Private servers are a great thing and all, but it's just not the same. I've played on a few, and it's not as much fun when you're lucky to have 1000 or so people playing at peak hours.

Chi:
Private servers are a great thing and all, but it's just not the same. I've played on a few, and it's not as much fun when you're lucky to have 1000 or so people playing at peak hours.

UOGamers has over 1500 at peak times, and I assure you it's as clustered as UO was on OSI servers. Not sure about Divinity though.