Yep its about that time. I havent personally played the game in months, and of the two player authors I managed to drag up only one is still posting and only about once a month.

Due to this Ill be shutting DFONews.com down sometime later this month, unless new authors step forward and wish to continue posting Darkfall related content.

Was fun while it lasted!

The siege of Gulghat

Well there was a big siege on Saturday and it was pretty much the most fun I’ve had in an MMORPG to date. Hundreds took part, we (Power Rangers) attacked the city which had been over run by Cairnbears. Cairnbears were pushed out of the city and took some high ground to the South while we defended the clanstone, fixed the bank and repaired the towers.

Then we got hit by a large force from the North whilst they manouvered a ship in from the East. We retreated to the clan keep where it began to feel like the siege of Stalingrad as the keep shook from cannon fire and the Cairnbears swarmed around the outside making sorties in but being fought off.

The order was then given to push out East so naturally I went West and ran into about 10 Cairnbears and was killed running East after getting my bearings. After that I’m not certain exactly what happened but Cairnbears took us out with 20 minutes left to take the clan stone, which they did.

It was great fun and thanks to all (including the Cauirnbears) for a great PvP experience, I can’t wait for the next battle (maybe I’ll kill someone!).

Agricola

Rather epic fight

Well it seems this is the first Darkfall review I’ve read for 2010 and it looks good to me and it describes a similar experience to my own and that of most seasoned MMORPGers. Read it here click it seems that Darkfall may have started to turn a corner concerning the press? Whatever the press thinks of it I’ll say that “Darkfall is a good game” as Aventurine has put the risk back into risk vs reward.

You know how everyone raves about open FFA PvP on forums, but when it comes to it few want to play? I think this video explains why, but I’ll point it out here in words for those not so sure what I mean. We all know about the forum warriors, screaming for a real FFA PvP game where they can own other players because they aren’t carebears ect. Seems to be alot when you read the forums but alot less are actually playing any of these games come release, why?

Here’s what happens,

A) Forum warrior prepares for game release, usually calling everyone else a carebear on the forums and stating how he’ll own your mother or something.

B) Game is released and forum warrior buys it and logs in.

C) Uber PvPer turns up and totally owns the forum warrior.

D) Forum warrior is hit by an acute case of nerd rage and writes a rage quit thread with some serious QQing about how the said game sucks and the game company need to change it so he can “PWN TEH NOOBS!”.

So that in short, is the life of many in games such as DFO. I’m pointing out how most start off in Darkfall with the idea of them winning the awsome PvP battles and mocking their fallen foe in victory as his mates run and they loot his sorry corpse. Whereas it never really happens that way, you have to get killed alot and spend a while before you get to a level where you can own anyone other than a 3 day old newbie that just got disconnected the moment you attacked.

The real winners are not boasting on forums or QQing about how tough it is to compete, they’re spending their time dieing alot and learning from the guys that are owning them. Then after a while they get to do some owning themselves, in my opinion it takes more patience and a thick skin to get good at PvP. As an “I R 1337″ attitude will generally get you a ride in the “Whhhhaaaaambulance”.

You learn from your failures, from your victories you’ll learn nothing.

Agricola

So we finally got a city, thanks to the alliance that is. A clan was disbanding and their city was up for grabs, Hammer Time decided we’d be the best candidates to run it so we were asked if we wanted it. So we sieged it and took her, the siege mechanics under the new system are as I understand it,
1: Challenge for the city (not sure how it’s done, I’m still a newbie).

2:Timer comes up allowing you to lay a siege stone (it’s a bind spot) within a certain amount of hours (about 3 I think).

3: After that timer is up and you’ve laid a siege stone or three then another comes up, giving you 22 hours until the siege begins. You now are told how many walls you need to destroy before you may attack the clanstone, these walls maybe destroyed at anytime within the next 24 hours but they must be down for the stone to be vunerable.

4: After the 22 hours is up the siege begins (a third 2 hour timer starts), if you’ve already taken down the walls you may go for the clanstone. If not you must destroy the walls then take down the clanstone. If the time runs out and you haven’t accomplished the tasks then you get squat!

That’s my understanding of city sieging from a noobs perspective, please correct me if I’m wrong (I’m sure I am) and enjoy the vid!

Agricola.

This looks badass… and horrifying!

Well, almost… they are currently patching the NA server, but EU1 is up at ready. So far reports are fairly limited, but seems the mages are crying, the melees / archers are excited, and pve has gotten…harder. Im looking forward to seeing how this shakes things up, and will throw up some editorials over the next few days.

Till then to read the patch notes click here.

I got restless waiting for our leaders to get the expansion out there so I made this,

Perhaps the expansion will give the crew the boost they need? To be fair what Aventurine is doing in this expansion is nothing short of epic. Call me a fanbois or an arse kisser if you want, but I’ve played MMORPGs that have had alot less done to them in over a year and they have a large wallet behind them with a massive team of expert Devs (allegedly!).

It seems to me the larger companies make their game and enjoy the high initial box sales. Then after the subscriptions fall off a cliff they abandon it for their next mega project. Moving all the developers who made the game to their new project and leaving a skeleton crew to hammer out an expansion you pay for as they stumble blindly through the mess of code they didn’t write. This kind of slash and burn approach to MMORPGs is what dilutes the market with sub standard tripe and lowers the tone. I might slag of Blizzard and WoW however it’s all tongue in cheek and to be honest Blizzard have concentrated on their main project and kept focused. Which has more to do with their success than anything, I expect to see Aventurine get that recognition one day with Darkfall.

Hope you enjoy the Video and sorry about my rant!

Agricola

Orolt Lifebring posted this nice 2v1 up on the forums, you can find the original thread here. I like it, cause its long and he was damn near death several times.