Hi. My completely real and non-hypothetical beta review. 100% reality.

Now, my friends, enemies, and closet homosexuals, the impossible has happened. Darkfall is mere days away from release. Is it worth the money?

Shortest answer: Yes. Why, though? It's frustrating, difficult, and you can lose almost all of your progress to one clever ambush. What makes this game worth it? Simple. It might be you leading the ambush.

Might be.

Could be.

But does not HAVE to be.

This game does not force you to do anything to advance, and it does not advance for you. You have to push it forward. To give you an example of how utterly nonlinear the gameplay is let me share a story with you. Me and some random person I teamed with (after I confirmed he was trustworthy and wouldn't kill me while I was on his team to avoid a penalty) decided to run to the human capitol for no particular reason. (We were elves (Mirdain, technically)). There was no point to the trip, and no goal, other than exploration. Let me tell you right now; Darkfall has the single best world ever seen in an MMO , if empty. It makes exploration for exploration's sake enjoyable. And I have the feeling it was suppose to be empty, so hordes of AI creatures don't interfere with the PvP. But that's just a feeling. Anyway, during the process we saw many things: ruined villages (pefect for ambushing people) a weird shrine/monument/coffin thing that seemed to exist for no particular reason, and skeletons. Lots of skeles. We were even harassed by a dragon at one point, which forced us down into a convenient abandoned cave for shelter (it was flying) and healing. Which was funny because while we were resting a couple humans ran through warily, and when they left they totally got wtfpwned by the dragon. Anyway, our little adventure ended with going through the wrong portal and getting raped by these uber things with awesome powers of awesomeness.

Graphics: 3.9/5 - Good, and with many lighting and color effects that give the world very realistic look.

Gameplay: Depends - That's all I can really say. It's obviously PvP centered, and at times the melee can be a clickfest, but with enough skill you can be a beast in PvP. PvE is a different matter though; everybody sucks at that for some reason. Anything ranged is aimed; bows or magic. And for crafters it's grindy, but I'm not a crafter personally, so I don't care. Also, magic is difficult. I am a caster, so reagents are a big concern to me.

This obviously wasn't a very extensive review. If you have a question, just ask.

What do you want, Sig? A rundown of what you'll be doing? Here:

First thing you'll probably do in the world = die. Because you, being of a slight noobish mindset, will attack someone in a starter city and get lazerbeamed to death by the guard towers. But when you respawn, you might or night not decide to locate the idiot handing out the nooby starter quests, which run you through the basics of combat and gathering. The combat is mostly against goblins, who are challenging enough that fighting two at a time with noob gear (i.e. naked with a leafblade) is a death wish. In fact, after about a five days of playing, I considered killing five at once and winning by only using two potions a monumental accomplishment. But I digress, whatever that means. Once you feel you have a toe-hold in the world, meaning you have some decent armor banked and are wearing some crappy cloth so you don't lose your decent stuff, you will probably move on to bigger (literally) and better (more difficult, and that's saying something) PvE. Unless you are in a clan, in which case you will inevitably be caught up in some drama or war. Or you could just decide to say screw it, go red, and kill everything you see. Or you could go on Race Alliance chat and start complaining that the gathering is too grindy, and that they should make some sort of minigame out of it. Whatever, what you do is your choice, as long as you have the equipment. It does get a little annoying losing all of your crap, and then having to grind goblins again for short swords and board shields. ANd I'm not in a clan, so I don't have access to all of their craftery goodness. In fact, last time I bought something from a crafter, he ripped me off and switched what he was giving me at the last second. So I waited for him to leave the city, stalked him into the wilderness, and ripped him a new asshole. Sadly, he had banked the gold, but I still got the armor I had originally tried to buy.

More to come when I feel like it.

Yet another example of stalking. Stop. Now.

mrcheese:
I'm just trolling warcry to make my journey to Owensville more enjoyable!

It won't be enjoyable.

Really? Have you made it often before?

mrcheese:
The trip to Owensville, Missouri where you live? No this is my first time, i'm so excited!

You know, having three different conversations in three different places with one person is getting kind of tedious.

Strike four, by the way.