I came across something rather terrifying. I saw what the world would be like if WoW tourists had full control of DarkFall. Allow me to explain.
Thanks to a comment on Keen’s site, I found Ixobelle’s blog with three posts about DarkFall. To keep the background short, Ixobelle is a WoW tourist, thinking DF would be really great if it just had a little (a lot) of WoW in it. It’s this, along with flooding servers, that makes me hate WoW tourists. Not EVERYTHING has to be WoW, and believe it or not, people actually had fun in MMOs long before the space goat invasion.
Not everyone needs 24 hour hand holding and adult supervision to ensuring everyone is playing nice and fair. Not everyone needs a pop up explaining every concept of the game to them the instant they come across it. Some of us find the Special Olympics-approved handling of game design a bit boring. I’m glad it works for you, have a ball, but please stop trying to force WoW down the throat of every new MMO.
The problem is that I just keep coming back to how awesome it would be if WoW was licensable like the Unreal engine, and the Darkfall team had made a WoW mod based on this premise. Full looting of corpses, the need to drag and drop items from corpses to your own bags one at a time. Even the need to sheathe your weapon before doing so isn’t BAD, it’s just poorly implemented in Darkfall. Remove the entire BoP / BoE aspect on equipment. You could even keep the PvE game instanced… Go run SFK for some blues, but if someone tags you by the Sepulcher, they can loot all that shit off you. Make the bank have an actual purpose instead of just being ‘that one big bag you can’t carry around’. Remove nameplates, and blur faction lines. Orc on orc ganking should be an option, even if frowned on. Some mechanics would obviously need to be tuned… stealth shouldn’t be AS stealthy as it is now, or casters would just be fucked by rogues. I also like the idea that in Darkfall there ARE no classes, or even levels. You just skill up abilities as you use them, and a mage could train kidney shot after enough melee practice eventually. There’s no magical bullshit reason why I can’t put this breastplate that I just found on my character right now.
Honestly, that’s outright scary to me. A WoW mod called DarkFall would be an abomination. There is a damn good reason you can’t spin the camera around in DF, and it’s not just ‘bad design’. There is a damn good reason 90% of the world is empty, and it’s not just ‘unfinished content’. There is a damn good reason it takes time to sheath a weapon, get off/on a mount, or loot a corpse, and it’s not just ‘bad UI design’. There is a reason you are fucked when you go red solo and unprepared, and it’s not just a ‘design oversight’. There is a reason combat is not a hotskill spam fuckfest, and it’s not just because the combat is ‘unfinished’. There is a reason you don’t win a PvP fight when you basically mimic the circle jerk you see, and it’s not just ‘bad luck’. And you better believe there is a damn good reason you are not having much success playing DarkFall as if it was a WoW mod, and it has nothing to do with the game being ‘unfinished’.
Go back to WoW. Enjoy the awesome. And should you choose to venture out beyond the land of neon again, don’t be surprised that not everything is as cute and cuddly as you are use to. Or better yet, just wait for 3.1.
Hardcore Casual 
And this is the reason I am marrying you :)
So you’re saying I wouldn’t do well in Darkfall, huh?
I would marry you, but Aria got to you first.
My only complaint about your blog Syn is that you need more passion in your writing!! :)
I really think it is time you seek therapy for your WoW past. Even after you left the game, it still consumes you. Every game you play you have to prop up bad game play as good because it is ‘not WoW’. Let it go and stop writing about it because you certainly don’t play it now.
You have good points about the strengths and weaknesses of the different MMO’s you play but you lose credibility when you try to speak with any authority on a game you don’t even play anymore (WoW).
Brast, go tell others to stop comparing things that were not designed to be WoW-like to WoW then.
What ‘bad gameplay’ am I propping up? What exactly has so radically changed in WoW that my experience with it up to WotLK is inadequate? Hell I’ve even seen 90% of the original version of Nax, before the short bus remake. How many current WoW players can say that? Should all opinions on current raiding be thrown out because most of the players don’t understand the original design choices behind all of Nax?
Now Now Syncaine, control your inner fanboy :)
Seriously though Ixobelle’s stuff did make for amusing reading particularly after your tagging of him as a Wow tourist. Anyone who measures time in GCD’s has definitely spent way too much time in Azeroth.
Jeez, is there some contractual requirement somewhere that hardcore PvP fans have to be such utter arsehats?
What’s with all the lame special needs jibes?
I’m sure you’re a good enough writer to express yourself without that shit.
The paralympic games, btw, are specifically for athletes with physical and visual disabilities, not mental ones anyway. So that special olympics aside made no sense at all.
My issue is that Syn (and many players like him)seems to think that there are two distinct groups here: (correct me if I am wrong)
a) Players and followers of DarkFall. “Hardcore Players.”
b) Players of WoW. “Carebears.”
While I can see that he might just be addressing the group of players like the guy he quoted, guys like him seem to think that if you do not support getting ganked by 17 year old Nu-Metal fans, then you somehow are not “hardcore.”
The “hardcore” discussion has gone all too long, and I’m too tired to have it again. Here are simply my questions:
1) Do these guys really think that they are somehow unique, and that there are not thousands of guys that think that they have achieved something significant?
2) Do they somehow think that there are players in WoW right now, NOT having a great challenge in current content?
3) WHY is the discussion (in this blog, and many others cases) always “WoW versus ______?”
4) Are there or are there not literally dozens and dozens of games out there, right now, that provide a “hardcore” experience? (I don’t think Syn has played that many.)
5) Did a “hardcore” player like Syn use any type of mod during his raiding “career” (that no mere mortal has come close to attaining?)A mod that actually makes the game EASIER?
6) Is spending 8 hours a night in the same content (raiding) REALLY hardcore? Simple human behavior will make that content get only easier with time, not more challenging.
7) Did these hardcore individuals start out “hardcore”..or the same as everyone..finding challenge in different levels/areas?
8) So, how long ago does a player need to have played an MMO before he is no longer a “player” of it? Syn seems to have played WoW within 2008. not so long ago. Is conversion to a “non-player” that fast of a transformation?
The fake/not fake Youtube guy, the one with the black beanie (I’m forgetting his name), is used by one side to show the idiots involved in PvP and used by the other side to show that not all pvp’ers are like that.
If the guy is real or not doesn’t matter, just like the comedian that does impressions. The truth is still behind it: all these kids, talking about how “hardcore” they are, while not so long ago they were having the time of their life playing “carebear” games..sensitive guys that NEED to say they are “hardcore” because in real life, they have issues just talking to girls. (Not saying Syn, for all I know he could be a super model. Of course, he won’t post his pic, like many bloggers. CHALLENGE! hehe)
I mean, do Syn and his guild talk to each other in game, going:
“Man, I can’t believe we used to play WoW! That ghey carebear game!”
“Yeh, man, that was a sad time..such carebear neon game-play! Too bad we spent HOURS and HOURS and HOURS in it.”
Does Darkfall REALLY make you lose anything of value when you die? No. All the players tell me to leave the good stuff behind, or just run back and get some more stuff. I think the “death penalties” in EVE are more “hardcore” yet, here we go.
Hell, Syn, did you even PLAY EVE?
Just tell me that you are addressing a very specific type of player (surely you wouldn’t think that every player of WoW (I don’t play, by the way) is a “carebear?”) and I will clam up.
Why can’t you just say “carebear” instead of “WoW Tourist?” Like the commenter above said, every time I hear a kid that mentions how BAD WoW has become, I ask myself how many hours a night did he play…5…7…9?
Beau
Yes, scary, the desire that another game should be technically as well put together as WoW no matter what the game mechanic. Why would we want a UI that was responsive and worked well?
Seriously, I read that quoted section and saw somebody who liked Darkfall but wanted the level of technical polish that WoW has. Are you saying you disagree with that desire?
@Beau:
1) What does being unique have to do with it? I just don’t get the point of this question.
2) I’m sure someone is challenged by 10 man Nax. I also know that plenty of people one-shot all of it, and for them that’s about as fun as wiping for weeks without progress on broken Rag. 2004 WoW was a good bit more difficult than WotLK WoW, and for me personally that’s not a good thing, so I left WoW (among other reasons). But keep WotLK-difficulty in WoW, and don’t spread it to every other MMO.
3) 11 million subs, making WoW influence the market above and beyond any other game. It’s also the first and only MMO for a good portion of the market, which results in the kind of stuff this post is about.
4) None RMT Open PvP fantasy MMOs? Dozens, really? And how does that relate to DarkFall and WoW tourists?
5) Making something easier, and only having the default option be easy are two different things. And no amount of mods would make Nax 40 anywhere close to Nax 25, so I still don’t see the point here.
6) If it’s a fun challenge, sure. Don’t you get a bigger feeling of accomplishment when you finish a month long project, rather than finishing writing your name at the top of a page? What you put into it and all that, since we are bringing up human behavior.
7) I enjoyed UO in 97, enjoy DF now, does that qualify me as hardcore? You seem to think players who enjoy a challenge need to be justified by that title. I’m fairly sure the people playing DF now are doing it because they like that type of game, and not because they need to earn ‘hardcore’ status on the internet.
8. What?
OG (the youtube guy) is a joke. Do we use Leroy Jenkins as a serious example of what running an instance is like in WoW? And how is point out some bad apples (which all sides have, thanks to this being the internet) have anything to do with the point of this post? OG is one joke, WoW tourists flood a new MMO, it’s a bit different is it not?
I did play EVE, yes. And the penalty is actually very similar. You don’t bring out your best ship randomly in 0.0, and you don’t do that in DF either. When you make a major fleet push, you bring out a Titan. When you make a guild PvP run, you bring out the magic gear.
I think you are intentionally misusing ‘hardcore’ to stretch a point. We both know this is not a black/white type of deal, but when you have one game setting the standard for millions, and those same millions flood other products and expect them to cater to their experience, it’s a potential problem for those who like the game that way it is now.
@TAGN: If you read that quote (or better yet the three posts) as just asking for technical polish, we see things very differently then.
Hey Beau, good job fucking taking up a whole damn page with ur gheyness, appreciate it. My turn (and mines a lot gheyer, bucko)
To your #1: Thousands < Millions (That means we’re better, more elite, if you will)
#2: Explain Level 80s who suck tons of ass at their class
#3: The same reason WoW has 11 million players, because it is the face of the term MMO to pretty much everyone
#4: He didn’t say hardcore once in the entire post. It isn’t about “hardcore” it is about chaos and survival of the fittest. (Lets not forget all the old EQ1 PvE fagors who think they’re hardcore because they want quest logs and maps removed) Space games do not equal fantasy rp games (especially ones with oblivion combat)
#5: Yes, it is called the internet and common sense. (i.e. researching your damn role and remembering it when the time comes)
#6: Who cares about WoW raiding imo
#7: Started out the same as everyone, just in different settings, which much like real life can shape you into the person/gamer you are when you grow up. If you cried in UO and ran to EQ as soon as you could, you can say you played UO, but did you really? (Yeah, that’s a no, btw)
I would assume him and his guild are talking about, hey kill that fucker before he gets away! Yeah loot loot loot, om nom nom. Maybe after a bunch of that will they mention WoW. “Haha, I am so glad I’m not still playing that stupid fucking game where I get to stand in line and follow the rules.”
“All the players tell me that I’m a big vagina who doesn’t have the balls to risk playing the game that has risk”
I’m pretty sure the non baddies in DF don’t save their best gear in the bank for a rainy day that’s never coming. You just stock pile it all in your bank, you lose some, you get some. Gear shouldn’t matter to you even though it does matter when you’re fighting someone. Wear it til you lose it and farm some more mats for a few more sets.
Oh and Syncaine, you’re so dumb you didn’t know about the special olympics. I hate you, my kid has downs, you’re so cruel!
Yes I am aware I am responding in very immature ways, but that’s fine for me because I’m just trying to pull a Beau on Beau. (By writing way too much shit that really doesn’t fucking matter, at all)
Wow is popular,sure..but it doesn’t set the standard for me. You might consider a new game as a reference, perhaps one that you like. After all, britney spears is popular, but I don’t use her as an opposition to my tastes.. I ignore her. There are plenty of games out there, and maybe you should just ignore WoW for a while ( until you pick up the next expansion at least.)
Point is, just do Darkfall a service, and quit comparing it to WoW. You realize that YOU actually sound a WoW obsessed player, just like the guy you are speaking against.
From your blogging, as well as those Keen kids, it seems that DF might actually be filled with ex WoW players, looking for some kind of thrill that WoW used to give them. That’s one reason I’m staying away for now, pretty soon all you ex- WoW players will be bored, onto another ” hardcore” game. Sorry, posted from my phone.
Bonedead, you’re such a cliché and you don’t even know it. How old are you? If you want to prove me wrong, you should probaby just not type anything. EVER.
“I did play EVE, yes. And the penalty is actually very similar.”
The benefits of holding-the-field immediately after a battle in EVE seem substantially lower than in DF. Ship hull loss and 50% module/contents destruction make EVE engagements strongly negative-sum (exception: insurance on tier 1 battleships, and salvage).
In DF it seems that the team that wins a battle will profit.
Meanwhile, how effective have you found DF’s item wear as an economic sink?
Does DF have anything analogous to moon-mining to provide benefits from control of territory?
I’m not as cliche as you’d like to think Mr. High and Mighty Beau Turkey! If I were there would probably be about 50 more l2(insert phrase here)s, some more leet speak, maybe a goatse or meme reference.
Plus, I’ve actually been thinking about diving into WoW again and trying to endure leveling my Warlock above 60.
Must be cool to think so highly of yourself, buddy.
You make it so easy for me to think higher of myself, Bonedead. I can’t help it.
Haha! I just read some of Bone’s blog… HE is that OG guy! I promise you Syn, that guy is real.
@Michael St E: It’s a tough call which is more negative sum, EVE does not have item wear, while DF does (and for weapons it’s rather significant, less so for armor). DF also does not have insurance of any kind. Mounts can also be killed, which is a somewhat significant loss.
Item wear overall is a good money sink, as is the fact that every crafted item has a small gold cost along with the mats needed. The economy really is similar to EVE, with perhaps the major difference being a global bank in DF, and item hauling in EVE (many players actually want the banking to not be global, I have not really given it a ton of thought on which side I stand on that issue)
DF has guild-controlled towns and hamlets, which have a specific resource that can be harvested (mining/lumber/herb). I’m not sure how that works though, as my guild has yet to build that functionality.
@Syncaine: I did not go read the source posts. I just don’t care that much. But I read what you wrote, I read what you quoted, and they did not seem to line up at all for me.
You need to come up with some better quotes to get me to buy into the theory of this person wanting to turn Darkfall into CandyLand.
When I see a quote like, “Even the need to sheathe your weapon before doing so isn’t BAD, it’s just poorly implemented in Darkfall.”
And see your response, “There is a damn good reason it takes time to sheath a weapon, get off/on a mount, or loot a corpse, and it’s not just ‘bad UI design’.”
I must admit I don’t see you talking about the same thing. Ixobelle wants it to work better and you’re arguing that… well… you didn’t read what Ixobelle wrote frankly. There are even suggestions of how to make Darkfall more hardcore in that quote.
I try to allow for the subjective angle, and maybe Ixobelle wrote something else that was heinous on her blog, but you didn’t quote that, you quoted the above.
It comes across as you saw WoW and Darkfall used in the same sentence and ran amok at the keyboard.
I’ll buy into “Don’t soften Darkfall,” but I really need to say somebody actually say that before I condone the lynching.
Ixobelle actualy had a pretty cool post. The last paragraph was nearly an afterthough, a musing. Even though it was asinine I don’t really believe it was an attack or an attempt at trying to carebear darkfall. Its a blog ffs. Some people post shit before thinking it over.
Even if it *was* a terrible idea (and it really is, that quoted bit is just plain sewage) the rest of the post had a pretty good first day review of darkfall.
@TAGN: Well it would be rather messy to quote all three posts, hence they were linked for reference.
Did you ignore this part?
“You could even keep the PvE game instanced… Go run SFK for some blues”
Only a few posts before I wrote why doing the exact opposite works so well in DF. What does the above have to do with technical polish?
“stealth shouldn’t be AS stealthy as it is now, or casters would just be fucked by rogues. I also like the idea that in Darkfall there ARE no classes, or even levels. You just skill up abilities as you use them, and a mage could train kidney shot after enough melee practice eventually”
DF has no stealth, for a VERY clear reason. Suggesting making WoW stealth not AS stealthy is missing the entire point, as is mentioning rogues and casters, again something that does not apply. Also, you don’t train up to get a skill like kidney shot. That just does not fit on so many levels. Again, what in those suggestions is just asking for Blizzard polish?
What exactly is poor about the technical aspect of sheathing a weapon in DF (I realize this is unfair to ask you since you don’t play DF, but I just don’t understand the complaint about the tech aspect of it, it’s a single key stroke) How would the Blizzard polish change this?
Again, the quote above is a SAMPLE of the overall attitude of the three posts. It’s perhaps tough to capture it all in one quote, but honestly, I think you know what it’s getting at even if you did not read the quote itself, so I’m a bit confused why you just brush it off as someone asking for the tech to work and nothing more.
I believe it is your ignorance of your own stances viewed from different perspectives that does that Beau. I can say that is true for me as well. Here we are both thinking we are right, when in fact, it is only our opinions.
But hey, why not be even more cliche.
Typical scrawny nerd guy (with hippie hair) finds plump girl (with give me attention hair) who he probably met in a guild that will give him the time of the day (finally). He enjoys talking about the “typical deep subjects” as all hippies do. Fan of leopard patterns on bed spreads. Also enjoys making himself feel “better” than others while completely unaware that by doing so he is subconsciously putting himself down (by opening up the possibility that others could be “better” than him, feelings of inadequacy can be triggered by wanting things you cannot attain).
But yeah, you’re better than me. I noticed you have a bit more walking room in your bedroom than I (with the same 2 small workstation setup + bed). But hey, at least I’m young and still very capable of growing.
Btw, how is that rock star dream panning out? Just curious.
Eh, I’m all for disagreeing and throwing opinions and whatnot, but all the personal insults are kind of cringe-inducing.
And yikes at the whole bringing someone else’s girlfriend/wife/whatever into the argument. That’s a rather low blow.
Well if he wants ammo to fight back my photobucket is linked on my blog.
(come on traffic!)
Ha, that unexpected response surprised a giggle out of me. :)
Jeesus, dude.
Are you describing yourself? (Nice mantle.)And, bedroom? What?
Seriously, you should have taken my advice. You are practically writing my comments FOR me.
Beau
Aha, the ole, I know you are but what am I defense. Well played sir.
“…so I’m a bit confused why you just brush it off as someone asking for the tech to work and nothing more”
Because, when I read it, that seems to be the essence of the piece you quoted, that Ixobelle wishes that the tech involved was better. What would it be like if you built DF on top of WoW’s technology? That seems as a worthy topic of discussion as many we bring up.
Wasn’t the point of taking Lit in college, being able to get to the overriding message without getting caught up in every little detail?
I saw the PvE comment as a throw away that was beside the point, not the overriding theme of the portion you quoted.
As for your quote, I would assume you took the most egregious passage to include in your post. Did you not?
Again, that’s not what I got out of reading the three posts, or even the quote above. If all you see is “DF would be better without bugs/lag” in all of that, not much I can say. I don’t think anyone is saying any game is better because it has a queue or lags, and I don’t think Ixobelle took three posts to get across the point that games are better without bugs.
I picked the quote because it’s a common theme that WoW players think they can take any other MMO, toss some of the ideas into WoW, and they would have a better game. If you want to continue debating the message behind his/her posts, perhaps read them?
Sorry, I’m lazy and of the opinion that a post should be able to stand on its own. I’ve taken Darren to task on that before.
Still, I read some of her stuff. Meh. It still seems to be more about functionality rather than turning DF into WoW. If I were to summarize your post, I’d probably go for “Syncaine Cries Wolf as Chihuahua Walks By.” Neither terrifying nor rational.
I think you’re just being a sensationalist traffic whore and violating the blogger PvP rules by not waiting until Friday.
I read all three posts, and my impression is the same as Wilhelm2451’s: She does not want to turn Darkfall into WoW, quite the contrary. She likes the thrill of of not being nearly-omniscient and exploring a dangerous world. But she does want Darkfall to have the polish that WoW has. And most of the polish is simply a huge pile of tiny optimizations, like the sword/looting issue. There’s no problem in having to sheathe your weapon when you loot, but the game should do that automatically when you attempt to loot something. Not having to jump through an extra hoop does not make the game one bit more “carebear”, because the main point of the gameplay mechanic is left intact: If you loot, you’re more vulnerable to attack.
“I picked the quote because it’s a common theme that WoW players think they can take any MMO, toss some of the ideas into WoW, and they would have a better game.”
I don’t think they THINK that they can do this. Blizzard has shown this as one of their key design strategies for years.
I’ll end on two points:
You can’t take the UT engine and create Team Fortress, not because of design issues, but because the underlying tech determines much of the game. Same idea here, much of what makes WoW feel so polished is in part design choices, and not just pure tech. WoW players have trouble seeing that, as shown in the above linked posts.
The sheath issue: In WoW it feels smoother because it does not actually effect the game in any way save fluff. You still execute skills at the same exact speed (your character just instantly pulls the weapons back out). In DarkFall, its BY DESIGN slower because it has more of an impact on the game. It’s not because the DF engine is slower than WoWs, or it’s bad UI/client coding, it’s INTENDED to be slower, and hence feels that way. If you are going from WoW to DF, it’s going to feel clunky. Making it feel more like WoW would not be a bug fix, but a design change, one that would (imo) hurt the game.
Auto-sheathing is also not an option, as it would be FAR more annoying to try and swing at someone only to have the game sheath the weapon for you because your target ran behind an interactable object. At first thought, it seems like such a simple change, but once you actually consider the all around impact, it’s a different story.
PS: The blogger PvP rules do not apply when its a murder rather than a fight.
“I picked the quote because it’s a common theme that WoW players think they can take any other MMO, toss some of the ideas into WoW, and they would have a better game.”
Would we not? Isn’t part of this whole blogging/gaming hobby about thinking what things would/could be like then talking about it? How is that some egregious error and insult to YOUR favorite game if someone else does it? Its just an exercise in thought and make believe. Syn, noones gonna “break” Darkfall because of some blog post. And we are in fact allowed to all like what we like and not have to get into some childish pissing match about WoW vs. Darkfall. The “hardcore tough guy anti-WoW” thing is getting tired. Tell us why you like something without having to use it as some backhanded thing to get back at WoW and the people who still play it. For the love of God, “Special Olympics-approved handling”… really? really? We are talking about games here. GAMES. Two games that share some things in common and some things that are different. The superiority complex has gotta go.
And Bonehead… did you really just call me “plump”? Really?
Read through all Ixobelle’s posts. Seemed like he was just looking for more polish on a promising/fun idea (Darkfall). WoW is quite polished, and easy to use as an example, so that is where the comparisons come in. Yes it is annoying that its ALWAYS WoW that is used as an example, WoW, WoW, WoW, but the theory behind it all was solid. I like your blog here Syn, but the knee-jerk angry reactions are getting old.
Just saw a comment from Ixobelle on his blog on the third post.
“I checked out darkfall (and have even begun talking about it in the past tense, apparently). There were a few interesting things it had going, but from a technical standpoint, it’s garbage. From a gameplay standpoint, it’s not much better. There was the one thing it had: being afraid of dying. That’s pretty much it.
I logged back into wow to check my mailbox last night after FINALLY unflagging myself (which, again, doesn’t seem like it should be something i should HAVE to do in the first place), and was just like “wait… why was I even suffering through that game again? huh, whatever”.”
So sorry Syncaine. You were right. I give up.
Having known Ixobelle for years now (from back on Not Addicted and having played LotRO with him for a while), I understand his style.
Ixobelle made another post on Keen’s blog that makes more sense of what he was talking about:
“the one thing they nailed on the head is the fear of death. and… that’s pretty much it. Combat is a lousy circle-jerk strafing thing, and I made the mistake of using knives when (as you mentioned) they totally suck.
the reason for this: armor is calculated on each swing, so dual wielding is penalized twice.
take a knife that hits for 5, against armor that blocks for 4 (random numbers for example)
5-4 right hand + 5-4 left hand = a whopping 2 damage done
2 hand sword that hits for 12 against the same armor: 12-4 = 8 damage done.
it wouldn’t be bad if knives attacked 4 times as fast… but they don’t. it’s certain glaring issues like this, and the shallowness of combat in general that just turned me off.”
I think that better outlines his problem with the game. There seems to be no choice in what weapons for efficiency as it seems like more of “If you want to be efficient, use twohanders or else you’ll do no damage”.
Also, Bonedead, why do you feel the overwhelming need to come to blogs talking like a condescending douchebag to everyone?
@Leala
Pay no attention to Bonedead, he gets like that when he doesn’t drink is daily pint of n00b blood.
Not meaning any offense to you or Beau, you are waaaay cute and I love your hair. :)
Ixobelle joined our Darkfall guild, yet did not group with any of us. Choosing to play solo in the starting area, then going red (painting a huge bulls eye on yourself), thus getting kicked from the starter area into the middle of a dangerous world without a proper weapon and no safe zone. I can see how this experience would leave a bad taste in any one’s mouth.
I wish I would have gotten a chance to meet Ixobelle, and show him/her how rewarding of a group experience this game can be. Darkfall is not solo friendly. If you do not like playing with a group of other players, save yourself some money and frustration, and do not get this game.
You can’t take the UT engine and create Team Fortress, not because of design issues, but because the underlying tech determines much of the game.
It’s funny that you chose Team Fortress as an example, considering that Team Fortress was initially released as an addon to the original Quake.. then Half-Life and finally the Source engine, the same that Half-Life 2 is built on. And that’s only counting the official versions. There are several fan-made versions of Team Fortress for the Unreal engine(s) as well.
The core gameplay can and has been separated from the underlying tech. But only if the underlying tech is modular enough. Ever since Doom, first-person shooter engines have emphasized modifiability and extensibility. As a result, one can have such wildly different games as Mass Effect and Mirror’s Edge running on the same engine.
And yes, a large part of WoW’s polish is design choices. However, there’s nothing preventing you from having the sheathing delay and auto-sheathing at the same time. And even if your enemy hides behind a gravestone, the UI should make it possible to distinguish whether the player wants to loot or use his weapon. For example.. using different keys/buttons for different actions. That lesson was learned back in the Atari days.
Is it really too much to ask for designers to critically look at previous games and their own?
@Hirvox: So now we are adding a loot button (which auto-sheaths you), what about harvesting? Is that going to auto-equip my tool for me? And is that a different button? What about getting on a mount, again auto-sheath and a different button? What about if I want to cast a spell? Should the game auto-equip the wand for me, and also hotkey the spell I want to cast? Another button? What if I want to attack a player, but I’ve yet to draw my weapon, should the game know I want to attack, so draw my weapon for me if I press a different button?
I’ll pass on all that ‘polish’ and learn to sheath my weapon before looting with one key, and left-click to interact with everything. Otherwise, I’d need some UI mod to manage all that ‘polished’ functionality…
Much fuss about nothing i think. Its a totally different game with different mechanics. WoW is pretty much a game where you can relax and progress easily whereas darkfall seems to be taking a different path that makes a player work more for certain things no matter the simplicity of the task. Sure people will moan about it at first but give it a few weeks and they will be used to it and not give it another thought.
I believe a big part of the grudge against WoW players is that so many of them are so new to the genre that they don’t realize many others have been fans longer. This leads them to bitch and moan about every other MMO because it isn’t happy go lucky easy mode land, they make posts with suggestions that would dumb down the game. I think people like me are defensive about this because before WoW, PvEers were such goddamn outspoken crybabies that any game with a chance of new and interesting PvP would turn into another stupid monster fighter game with a small circle where you could fight people if they agreed to it. If you want to tell me to go play an FPS right now, I’m talkin about you.
Plus, the WoW audience is so huge that it is very easy to lay blame on them for plenty of things. Why the fuck is there a 4 hour queue (see: DF)? Goddamn WoW newbs! Why are all these servers closing (see: WAR)? Goddamn WoW newbs! Why is everyone in this game retarded and talking about chuck norris (see: SWG)? It’s the goddamn WoW newbs!
Layla, indeed I did. So whatchu gon’ do? (with all that junk)
Mordiceius, I’m pretty sure that is like rule #1 of the internet. Unless they’ve been updated.
IMO Ixo (the GUY, not a girl) gave up too soon. I had the same problem, I turned red as a noob and was stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I was lucky enough to find a Wessex miner though after a bit of exploring. The game is really daunting at first though. I was literally nervous about logging in because I was afraid of failing. Once you accept the game for it’s harshness and adapt to it, it really starts to shine.
Leala (part 2)- That used to be what it was about for myself (can’t speak for Syncaine) until I got a good idea of what I really wanted out of an MMO. Darkfall is what I’ve always wanted. So when people start taking my baby and mentally molest the shit out of it, yeah, it chaps my butt a little bit.
I’ll pass on all that ‘polish’ and learn to sheath my weapon before looting with one key, and left-click to interact with everything. Otherwise, I’d need some UI mod to manage all that ‘polished’ functionality…
Or one could take a look at Assassin’s Creed, where the UI is less based on what you’re doing and more on what you want your character to do. Altair will unsheathe his sword automatically when attacking, he’ll look for footholds when you’re jumping/climbing on the rooftops, will stop and turn automatically when you tell him to go the opposite way and so on.
Assassin’s Creed’s UI is also based on aggressive/passive stances, but stance-switching is instant and won’t have any effect until you actually tell Altair to do something.
Now we are creeping into apples and oranges. In AC how does the UI handle crafting, player interaction, chat functionality, etc. They just don’t match up.
The overall point is, there is a difference between lacking polish and player error or lack of adaptation. I play DarkFall, never have I thought that the sheathing functionality is lacking, because my first though was not “hmm in WoW I hit X and instantly my character pulls out his weapon”, which just goes back to the issue with WoW tourists, everything is looked at through “but WoW did this” glasses.
Now we are creeping into apples and oranges. In AC how does the UI handle crafting, player interaction, chat functionality, etc. They just don’t match up.
Do they have to? I’m not advocating that an apple should be like an orange. All I’m saying that there are features that are desirable in both. An UI that does not get in the player’s way is one such feature.
Well in DF you have to sheathe your weapon in order to loot, use the bank, initiate your trade, get on your mount, etc etc. If it was easy to do that then you could easily loot people before you die and still escape, bank all your gear before you die, have smaller chances of losing your mount, but trading would be easier (or more dangerous since you could probably unsheathe and gank the guy quicker after you see that he is carrying loot). That eliminates a lot of the risky situations that makes Darkfall the enjoyable game that it is.
Well in DF you have to sheathe your weapon in order to loot, use the bank, initiate your trade, get on your mount, etc etc.
And with something like Assassin’s Creed’s stance system, those actions could still take the same amount of time, keeping the PvP balance intact.
I am not familiar with Assassin’s Creed’s stance system. If it makes your character react to his closest surroundings, I could see that being a problem in a multiplayer game with lag and such. What if you run up to a guy sheathed, hit F to start a trade, then the game thinks you want to fight him, unsheathes your weapon before you can click begin trade, and you attack him.
I am not familiar with Assassin’s Creed’s stance system. If it makes your character react to his closest surroundings, I could see that being a problem in a multiplayer game with lag and such. What if you run up to a guy sheathed, hit F to start a trade, then the game thinks you want to fight him, unsheathes your weapon before you can click begin trade, and you attack him.
The beauty of the system is that it avoids that problem altogether. The stance system doesn’t cause the character to react, it just defines how the character will do whatever action the player told the character to do. It provides context. For example, when moving through a crowd the stance makes the difference between gently navigating through and shoving them aside. In your example, the unsheath-then-attack would only happen in the aggressive stance.
Ahh, similar to WoW Warriors (in that each stance is it’s own button/key). I just don’t think that would work in DF, especially since sheathe/unsheathe is one key, if there were stances instead there would be 1-2 more keys you gotta push. Or am I still not getting it?
Unless you have a combat stance and a “use” stance. You could get rid of the sheathe/unsheathe key and the use key as well (by making left click be the use key while in the use stance). You would gain two new keys of course, unless you just make a “stance” key which cycles through the stances. Aha! One key to rule them all.
It’s more like using a shift key. For example, if you have the spring blade selected, plain attack is a backstab. If you press stance+attack, you leap towards the enemy and stab through their neck and spinal cord. And if you absolutely, positively have to kill everyone in the room, there’s the caps lock. ;-)
If DF would just give in and duplicate the WoW UI, then the WoW tourists wouldn’t need to re-map their programmable gaming pads. That would save them lots of time and they could get back to WoW that much quicker. In fact, let’s just allow WoW players to import their WoW characters into DF, along with buddy lists and everything. Then they can just play DF like it’s new content for WoW.
If Ixo represents the “make it more like WoW at any cost” crowd, syncaine is the other end of the spectrum, the “make it less like WoW at any cost” crowd.
The “stance” analogy from Assassin’s Creed is one useful way that you can minimize the need for a bunch of buttons while still not having to micro-manage pointless crap (i.e. sheathing and unsheathing your weapon).
Or is it your premise that unsheathing your weapon and THEN pressing your attack buttons takes some kind of mad skillz?
Having said that – yes, several of Darkfall’s non-WoW-esque design features are useful and intended. But this doesn’t mean they all are. Stop blindly hating on WoW just as you wish others would stop blindly loving it.
Disclaimer: Personally, I think WoW sucks. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feature SOME useful aspects of game design though.
Hey, if President Obama can make fun of the Special Olympics on national television, then you can too Syn. You have received a presidential pardon on that one.
I saw that today, made me laugh. He did apologize to all those little retards (Something About Mary joke, relax emo trolls)
Have you seen mah weinah?
Uh, I’m late to this one, but I think I covered this:
What exactly is poor about the technical aspect of sheathing a weapon in DF (I realize this is unfair to ask you since you don’t play DF, but I just don’t understand the complaint about the tech aspect of it, it’s a single key stroke) How would the Blizzard polish change this?
It’s not the act of sheathing the weapon, it’s the fact that opening the loot tombstone apparently has a ‘speed’ slider. Someone who doesn’t know about that sits there with their thumb up their ass while the next guys is busy looting.
That’s bad design.
That’s not ‘hardcore’, or ‘intense’, or ‘anti-carebear’. There’s no reason at all to have an adjustable rate of ‘when the loot window will appear, that may be a different speed than the next guy’.
That’s just bad design. Why ANYONE would have this value set to ANYTHING other than instant means that it shouldn’t even be a ‘feature’, much less one labeled ‘cluster rate’ or whatever the hell they called it. I forget the name, but it certainly wasn’t ‘loot window appear speed’.
It’d be like setting an alpha transparency setting to the entire game window. Nobody cares to see their recycling bin on their windows desktop while they play. It would just be stupid. Everyone would make the setting 100% opaque, so they don’t bother even including that as an option.
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