Darkfall’s intriguing potential

From everything I’ve read, Darkfall Online is one of those games that you’ll either love, or hate, with a vengeance. There’s already a preponderance of vocal critics on both sides of the fence, and many of them have been around for a long time, either voicing their disdain, professing their love for, or (ahem, rightly) amusing themselves at the expense of a game that many considered vapourware until the last year or less. I’ve been aware of the game for a few years, now, dating back to before I began playing World of Warcraft in 2004 (which was already several years after Aventurine started development on Darkfall), but it’s only recently that I’ve been paying much attention to the game.

Today, Darkfall’s NDA was officially lifted and the game’s system specs were revealed, and there are already a variety of bloggers making noise about a game that no one even expected to be released before the end of the decade — if at all. Keen already has an excellent post up letting you know what you should and shouldn’t expect from Darkfall, and MMOCrunch has a pretty solid review of the beta that’s a good read. There’s also some gameplay footage available (note: the first footage I included was made private on YouTube, doh) that’s definitely worth checking out.

I’m a cynic when it comes to MMOs, these days. In a past life, I wasn’t, but I’ve played them for well over a decade now, after years of online gaming prior to MMOs becoming commonplace. What I really enjoy is seeing some design progress in a genre that has, over time, become stagnant, rife with the success of polished yet staggeringly bland PvE-oriented games like WoW; products with tons of potential like Age of Conan that were released half-finished and lost their users as quickly as they gained them; games like Warhammer Online that were strong at release and are starting to get back into fighting shape now, or even heavily-hyped MMOs like Tabula Rasa that failed miserably right out of the gate.

Darkfall is more than likely not in that triple-A category of MMO that generates press left and right when they merge servers or layoff staff, but it’s an interesting entry into a niche sandbox-PvP genre that should draw more favourable comparisons when compared with Shadowbane, Asheron’s Call or Ultima Online than the current crop of popular MMOs. With a tiny development team that’s been working steadily for nearly eight years, it’ll be interesting to see whether persistence has paid off. I’m all about the little guy succeeding (hell, that’s what I’m trying to do with my other site), so I’m paying close attention and hoping that Darkfall can at least meet some of the heavy expectations being placed on its virtual shoulders by a large contingent of PvPers dissatisfied with their available MMO options.

Admittedly, I didn’t participate in the closed beta (although I did apply for it), so my thoughts are based solely on beta reviews and what I’ve heard about the game from various sources, including Darkfall’s much discussed and hotly debated feature list. This evening, I won’t be discussing what you’re likely to have already read about in a dozen places, and I won’t be talking about what you’ve seen in the much-publicized trailer that’s been floating around for ages, either.

What I’d like to discuss are a few of the features that make Darkfall particularly interesting to me; the little things that make Darkfall stand out in the current MMO scene, from what many would consider an amazingly (or unrealistically) ambitions feature set. I’m in no way convinced that the game will meet the massive expectations being placed on it by way of unrealistic expectations generated by the ground-breaking features it touts, but I’m more than willing to give it a chance.

Sure, it’s got jerky animations, a clunky UI, and campy, dated graphics. Yes, it allows for all-out, full looting of player corpses. It has no level-based progression at all. You have to train skills by actually performing the action in question repeatedly (RSI, anyone?), and gear won’t really have much bearing on your character. It has clan-built cities, huge PvP sieges and raids, player-owned boats, ocean warfare, real pirates; you name it, Darkfall has it. All of the stuff we’ve been asking for in other games for years, and some extra bits that no one’s really been ballsy (or crazy) enough to implement with a business on the line.

We’ve heard all of this before, right? Nothing new here.

So what all is different that should peak your interest if you’re a bored MMO player, out looking for a little innovation? Darkfall has a few risky features that are, if taken together, not necessarily revolutionary, but definitely a step away from what’s available to players of the genre today.

1. A completely player-driven economy.
   This is something I’d really love to see work better than in the current incarnation of MMORPGs. A game with a real, thriving economy, where player-crafters can actually forge a living and gain power simply from plying their trade. With a full-looting PvP system, tradeskills — and in particular, guild tradefolk — will obviously be more in demand. As I haven’t played the beta, I’m still in the dark as to some of the auction house/marketplace-style features of the game, but I’d really love to see a game address some of the improvements I’ve previously discussed about WAR’s auction system (and WoW’s.)
2. First-person combat in an MMORPG.
   This obviously isn’t a first in an MMO in general (Planetside had this years ago), but it’s definitely something you’d be more likely to find in the MMOFPS sub-genre or in a traditional single-player RPG (think Oblivion) and not as much in MMORPGs (though many have had it as a little-used option.) In Darkfall, its purpose is twofold: providing you with slightly more twitch-style melee and ranged combat (including spellcasting!), and preventing you from doing the ubiquitous glance-over-your-shoulder-while-running-in-the-opposite-direction trick that most modern-day MMOs allow you to accomplish via mouse-look in the middle of a fight. This should make for some interesting PvP, especially combined with the supposedly directional attacks where you actually have to aim your melee swipe or stab, or spell/ranged attack. I’m curious to see how this works in practice.
3. Communications with the enemy.
   This is what I think will be by far one of the most controversial features of Darkfall: you can talk to everyone, friend or foe — meaning you can heckle and curse at the guy who just killed you, or taunt the enemy you just decimated in a 1v1 battle. It’s both scary and exhilarating. It’s also something that a variety of “hardcore PvP” games have tried and I don’t know whether it’d be considered a raging success or not in its previous incarnations. The sword cuts both ways, here; some will say that it’s mandatory in a true PvP game to be able to verbally harass your enemies, but it’ll also likely drive away a lot of players who may be coming from more carebear PvP games (even WAR would be considered “PvP-lite” compared to this) and expecting a similar social experience. This is where the community that builds around Darkfall will truly come into play; if we end up with a more focused, respectful and adult community, I could see it working out well. However, if it just turns into a bunch of kiddies tossing moronic insults back and forth throughout every “epic” clan battle, that’s when the proverbial shit hits the fan.
4. A single world (and server) without instanced zones or load times.
   Darkfall boasts a seamless, sandboxed world that can support up to 10,000 simultaneous players on one server. Of course, they’re focusing all of their energy on supporting that one, single server. Which runs the risk of not being able to handle the load placed on it upon release. I hope they have some kind of alternate plans in place in case they need another server or two at launch, heh. I’ll be generous and say that in online/internet terms, you’ll usually have 10% of your total user base as a normal simultaneous load on average, and you should likely be prepared to hit 20-25% at peak capacity, during important moments like major patches and product launches. In this case, that would suggest Aventurine is prepared to support 40,000 to 100,000 gamers at launch with a single server. I’m highly dubious about their claims here; I’ll believe it when I see it. For comparison’s sake, most of the popular, higher-end MMOs today can barely handle 3,000-5,000 simultaneous players (if that much…) on a single server, without resorting to login queues. And that’s in heavily-architected, modern game worlds with clean zone delineations, load times, and instanced areas. I’ll be watching this carefully.
5. Real risk in gameplay.
   I like the concept of purely “skill-driven” gameplay, with full looting, and no gear dependence and a class/level-free character progression. Quite obviously, those things wouldn’t work well if they weren’t tied together. If you had full looting in a game where gear actually mattered, you’d pretty much be up shit creek without a paddle every time you died in PvP. Thankfully, your character itself — and its current skillset — appears to trump your gear load-out here. Hopefully that works as well in practice as it does in theory… I also like the fact that there’s actual risk involved in walking into a fight. It’s not just a matter of rez/respawn and run back like it is in most modern MMOs. There’s even risk involved in the act of looting, which is hilarious. Can you imagine getting ganked because you got greedy, bent over and decided to strip that last piece of chainmail off the dead foe at your feet? The possibilities here are awesome. Of course, it may suck in practice, but I’m an idealist at heart, too. :)

Keep in mind that the list above is based strictly on what I’ve heard about the game. I haven’t played the beta and if I made any mistakes or omitted anything important, please let me know. I’m all about finding out more about the game from people in the know, so feel free to yell at me if I’m dead wrong about something I’ve said.

From my (albeit limited) perspective, the features I’ve listed above are either pure genius or a recipe for disaster. I don’t know if there’ll be any middle ground when it comes to Darkfall. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out, but even though I’ve never considered myself a hardcore PvPer, I still enjoy me some PvP and I’m likely going to give the game a fair shake. I’m more than willing to give up a few bucks to see how close Aventurine can get to the ideals they’re striving for.

Even if they happen to fall flat on their faces in the process, participating in and observing what should be one of the more intriguing MMO launches in recent years should be worth the price of admission.