Finally someone has stopped listening to the care bear whining morons that have destroyed pvp games since UO1 introduced dreadlords not being able to rez if they died.
Well there is certainly a market out there for someone who is brave enough to make a skill based, sandbox style game. I don't think Darkfall has the lore that Ultima does though. Ultima was a classic RPG series that really had a huge player base even before UO was launched. I hope Darkfall has a lot of the same elements, in fact, I hope they completely just rip off orginal UO lol.
Ya this is pretty much a spiritual successor to UO. After looking into a lot of the features it actually appears it may be better then the original UO if the developers can get everything they intend to into the game. I'm looking forward to the pvp combate mostly because it incorporates a lot of elements seen in other skill based games. Having a such a political oriented game will be fun - huge city battles, continent control, and guild rivalries!
I just hope they can get the theif system in a good state for beta... they add so much fun to any game - and i dont even play a thief... i just like battling them :>
Yes. This game has every feature an experience gamer craves. Many of us are entirely bored with the cookie-cutter mmo-clones that are coming out these days; Darkfall's features are perfect.
Yes. This game has every feature an experience gamer craves. Many of us are entirely bored with the cookie-cutter mmo-clones that are coming out these days; Darkfall's features are perfect.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
Yes. This game has every feature an experience gamer craves. Many of us are entirely bored with the cookie-cutter mmo-clones that are coming out these days; Darkfall's features are perfect.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I think way to many people are jumping the gun because we have heard about features but what have we really seen? I hope it doesn't turn out like Felucca empty and dead because we all know that people talk about being a hardcore pvp'er and when they get looted and killed over and over they go from hardcore to cry baby.
I would like to see this game in real action so, I'm not going to sing it's praises till then. But I have told my friends about it and we all have mixed feelings and hope for the best. Untill we get to play it though it's not even worth defending or trashing. I really don't understand how people can slam a game they haven't played based on a video yet call someone who defends it and get's really excited about the video an idiot or fanboy or whatever. That is a two way street though and I've seen countless points anointing DF as the end all to all mmorpgs and the same if not more calling it everything from trash to vaporware. Get a life and let the game come out when it does. Or you can just demonstrate how meeningless your life is by worshipingflaming a game that isn't even out.
Yes. This game has every feature an experience gamer craves. Many of us are entirely bored with the cookie-cutter mmo-clones that are coming out these days; Darkfall's features are perfect.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I didn't really say EQ and UO were the same, I know they weren't, I played UO for 4 years. However, its still a clone of UO are you crying for. I agree, there are lots of features UO had that other games never took but one of them WASN'T FFA PvP, which is the main point of Darkfall. They made Trammel and saved the game from disaster. If DF doesn't have a "Tram" but it plays like UO, it will fail horribly. UO almost failed with no competitors before Tram, DF is up against tons of other games now, I hope they realize this.
Yes. This game has every feature an experience gamer craves. Many of us are entirely bored with the cookie-cutter mmo-clones that are coming out these days; Darkfall's features are perfect.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I didn't really say EQ and UO were the same, I know they weren't, I played UO for 4 years. However, its still a clone of UO are you crying for. I agree, there are lots of features UO had that other games never took but one of them WASN'T FFA PvP, which is the main point of Darkfall. They made Trammel and saved the game from disaster. If DF doesn't have a "Tram" but it plays like UO, it will fail horribly. UO almost failed with no competitors before Tram, DF is up against tons of other games now, I hope they realize this.
True, DF doesn't have anything like Tram, but I rarely played in Tram, and I know a great many people who didn't spend much time in the non FFA PvP mirror of the original UO.
Personally I've always believed that there were other ways of fixing the rampant PKing that the early UO experienced. Narrowing the gap in power between new and old players would have helped, for example. Using a FPS combat system also helps as it's familiar to most gamers and it upsets the balance that consistantly puts the advantage in the hands of the character with the older account.
I had a friend (girl) who as getting married in Ultima Online. So i wanted to wreck her wedding so i made an alt named genleo and got a friend to tame a beetle for me. There were at least 30 people in this castle and 3 other people were planning to assassinate her cuz she was a shadowlord or whatever it was!! Howeverrr i released the beetle on herr killing her just before she was about to say I do and thus ruining the wedding resuliting in great times!!
I still bounce around on old-school Ultima freeshards since that game to me is still more fun than most of the stuff out there, especially the level and gear grinds of WoW. Risk vs. Reward should always be a central theme in a game. There is so much more thrill when you have a chance to die and lose all that you've worked for in the last hour.
I honestly don't know how so many people find WoW to be fun. That being said I'm actually giving Warhammer a shot right now and finding it a lot more bearable but I'd sure as hell drop it in a heartbeat for Darkfall... It's pretty similar to WoW but definitely differentiates itself in many ways. The whole leveling idea I still find to be totally bogus and can't wait to see what crazy templates people will come up with in DF..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Self-confessed DF fanboy. Finally a real ****ing MMO.
Yes. This game has every feature an experience gamer craves. Many of us are entirely bored with the cookie-cutter mmo-clones that are coming out these days; Darkfall's features are perfect.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I didn't really say EQ and UO were the same, I know they weren't, I played UO for 4 years. However, its still a clone of UO are you crying for. I agree, there are lots of features UO had that other games never took but one of them WASN'T FFA PvP, which is the main point of Darkfall. They made Trammel and saved the game from disaster. If DF doesn't have a "Tram" but it plays like UO, it will fail horribly. UO almost failed with no competitors before Tram, DF is up against tons of other games now, I hope they realize this.
Trammel didnt affect the number of subs positive. On the contrary, many hardcore PvP players left the game cause they felt abandoned by OSI.
What really was the final nail in the UO coffin was AoS, Age of Shadows. This was a carebear patch that remade the game into a item dependable one.
Age of Shadows was introduced february 2003 and by watching this MMOG active subscription chart of UO you can see that the real downfall of UO came with the carebear patch Age of Shadows february 2003.
Trammel didnt affect the number of subs positive. On the contrary, many hardcore PvP players left the game cause they felt abandoned by OSI. What really was the final nail in the UO coffin was AoS, Age of Shadows. This was a carebear patch that remade the game into a item dependable one. Age of Shadows was introduced february 2003 and by watching this MMOG active subscription chart of UO you can see that the real downfall of UO came with the carebear patch Age of Shadows february 2003. http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html Saying trammel saved UO is a Myth created by the carebears. Age of Shadows was what destroyed UO. Or in other words, carebear implementations destroyed UO. Have a nice one
Trammel was introduced in May of 2000. By MMOcharts it had no effect on subscriptions at all they continued to rise. It didn't save UO but it didn't kill it either. AoS was introduced in Febuary of 2003. In March of 2003 UO reached 250,000 subscriptions the higest ever. After AoS. AoS did make the game more item centric. Most PvP games are also item centric. It's not a "carebear" trait. It's just bad game design in my opinion. At that time the game was almost six years old already and other games were pulling people away. There's no proof AoS destroyed UO. In fact MMOcharts says UO is still has 70,000 subscribers. It's not been destroyed at all. Not bad for a game launched ten years ago this month.
Look at the chart again and youll see the number of subs flatened out after Age of Shadows were introduced with it's carebear features and from there on it's been all downhill for the game UO.
Making a game like UO item dependable is making it a carebear one. It removes the skill focus from playerskill to having the best gears.
It was also what killed the game Ultima Online once and for all.
Freeshards have been the oasis for the hardcore PvP players that seek there skillbased game, not a gear dependable one. Carebears ruined UO.
Edit - it says alot when the freeshards have more people playing the game then the original one. Then someone made a severe mistake. That mistake was Age of Shadows.
Look at the chart again and youll see the number of subs flatened out after Age of Shadows were introduced with it's carebear features and from there on it's been all downhill for the game UO. Making a game like UO item dependable is making it a carebear one. It removes the skill focus from playerskill to having the best gears. It was also what killed the game Ultima Online once and for all. Freeshards have been the oasis for the hardcore PvP players that seek there skillbased game, not a gear dependable one. Carebears ruined UO. Edit - it says alot when the freeshards have more people playing the game then the original one. Then someone made a severe mistake. The mistake was Age of Shadows.
I stubed my toe yesterday and gas prices went up $1.50 a gallon. Obviously stubbing my toe causes an increase in gas prices. That's called a Non Sequitur. So is your assertion. We know subscription numbers fell we don't know why.
Making a game item centric adds the burden of obtaining items. It does not remove skill. A skilled player naked, with perfect gear, or any where in between will defeat an unskilled player similarly equipped. Skill has not been removed another requirement, gear, has been added. Gear always mattered in UO. as did skill "percentage" It's simply a matter of degree not a change in basic mechanics. If you don't believe gear will matter in Darkfll play without it.
[sarcasm] Or are you a carebear who needs gear to win instead of skill? [/sarcasm]
Gear centricity is not a feature of carebearism. Few would call Shadowbane a carebear game, and they would be wrong. Gear is vital to PvP in Shadowbane and most other PvP games to the point you cannot win without it no matter how skilled you are. That doesn't make people who PvP almost exclusively carebears for using it. You saying it is so does not make it so.
Horseshit. Just like SWG died when SOE obliterated it, OSI (I'll always call it that :P ) ruined Ultima Online with more and more anti-PK measures. Starting with stat loss (which didnt bother me, as it gave us something to worry about), ending with Trammel, insurance on items, and other IDIOTIC features, that game has been dying slowly.
Here's why - they turned the perfect PvP game toward PvE. The game, engine, graphics, feel, economy, etc, simply isnt suited for PvE gameplay. It just isnt. Sit in Wind and farm dragons/daemons for seven hours, going through four reg bags - see how much fun it is.
Bottom line - Ultima will always run off of PvP mayhem, no matter if its Bill the Murderer getting ganked by 10 noto blues, or John the Carebear getting anally penetrated by six Reds who para-whore him. It will ALWAYS be successful with PvP.
Dont believe it? Look at the free shards. Plenty of population on there, and carebears are generally used as blow-up dolls for Bubba "Zomg 1478 Long Counts!" Jones.
Look at the chart again and youll see the number of subs flatened out after Age of Shadows were introduced with it's carebear features and from there on it's been all downhill for the game UO. Making a game like UO item dependable is making it a carebear one. It removes the skill focus from playerskill to having the best gears. It was also what killed the game Ultima Online once and for all. Freeshards have been the oasis for the hardcore PvP players that seek there skillbased game, not a gear dependable one. Carebears ruined UO. Edit - it says alot when the freeshards have more people playing the game then the original one. Then someone made a severe mistake. The mistake was Age of Shadows.
I stubed my toe yesterday and gas prices went up $1.50 a gallon. Obviously stubbing my toe causes an increase in gas prices. That's called a Non Sequitur. So is your assertion. We know subscription numbers fell we don't know why.
Making a game item centric adds the burden of obtaining items. It does not remove skill. A skilled player naked, with perfect gear, or any where in between will defeat an unskilled player similarly equipped. Skill has not been removed another requirement, gear, has been added. Gear always mattered in UO. as did skill "percentage" It's simply a matter of degree not a change in basic mechanics. If you don't believe gear will matter in Darkfll play without it.
[sarcasm] Or are you a carebear who needs gear to win instead of skill? [/sarcasm]
Gear centricity is not a feature of carebearism. Few would call Shadowbane a carebear game, and they would be wrong. Gear is vital to PvP in Shadowbane and most other PvP games to the point you cannot win without it no matter how skilled you are. That doesn't make people who PvP almost exclusively carebears for using it. You saying it is so does not make it so.
Horseshit. Just like SWG died when SOE obliterated it, OSI (I'll always call it that :P ) ruined Ultima Online with more and more anti-PK measures. Starting with stat loss (which didnt bother me, as it gave us something to worry about), ending with Trammel, insurance on items, and other IDIOTIC features, that game has been dying slowly.
Here's why - they turned the perfect PvP game toward PvE. The game, engine, graphics, feel, economy, etc, simply isnt suited for PvE gameplay. It just isnt. Sit in Wind and farm dragons/daemons for seven hours, going through four reg bags - see how much fun it is.
Bottom line - Ultima will always run off of PvP mayhem, no matter if its Bill the Murderer getting ganked by 10 noto blues, or John the Carebear getting anally penetrated by six Reds who para-whore him. It will ALWAYS be successful with PvP.
Dont believe it? Look at the free shards. Plenty of population on there, and carebears are generally used as blow-up dolls for Bubba "Zomg 1478 Long Counts!" Jones.
lol this post makes me happy
and to: zymurgeist
ok seriously... the release of bad expansions and sub numbers are not non-sequitur
Horseshit. Just like SWG died when SOE obliterated it, OSI (I'll always call it that :P ) ruined Ultima Online with more and more anti-PK measures. Starting with stat loss (which didnt bother me, as it gave us something to worry about), ending with Trammel, insurance on items, and other IDIOTIC features, that game has been dying slowly.
Here's why - they turned the perfect PvP game toward PvE. The game, engine, graphics, feel, economy, etc, simply isnt suited for PvE gameplay. It just isnt. Sit in Wind and farm dragons/daemons for seven hours, going through four reg bags - see how much fun it is.
Bottom line - Ultima will always run off of PvP mayhem, no matter if its Bill the Murderer getting ganked by 10 noto blues, or John the Carebear getting anally penetrated by six Reds who para-whore him. It will ALWAYS be successful with PvP.
Dont believe it? Look at the free shards. Plenty of population on there, and carebears are generally used as blow-up dolls for Bubba "Zomg 1478 Long Counts!" Jones.
Trammel had no effect on PvP. Felucca was still there unchanged. The problem with Felucca is no one wanted to play there. The game was always a huge grind. Extending the grind was a bad idea but it wasn't fundamentally a carebear change. Mostly because the lack of easy targets had driven off most of the PvP-centric crowd. Fighting eachother on felucca was unthinkable. I've looked at the shards. More people still pay the subscription than play the free shards.
...trammel had no effect on PvP... right....honestly are you crazy? Humans always take the easy route.. which is why everyone started farming in trammel.... making one world on easy mode will always cause that worldspopulation to to higher.. just look at WoW...
people as a gorup choose easy mode.. and they did, which ruined PvP.. because it could be avoided entireley..
seriously go on freeshard tho.. they have 1000 people online with lots of people in every city.. go on the most populated OSI shards then the most populated private shards... HUGE difference.. i did it last month
personally i think there should be zones/regions that are "quite safe", similar to EVE, meaning that you can attack anyone anywhere, but if you attack someone in high security space, the NPC police warp in and wtfpwn you. It's not completely safe though because thieves/gankers can alpha-strike a transport ship loaded with valuable gear, effectively suiciding it, then your group-mates loot the victim's and your gear for huge profit. it happens a lot.
It's possible to play the whole game in high-security regions in EVE, and while essentially safe, it's not very lucrative. all the real money is in the non-safe areas.
Point is, EVE has managed to create a graduated balance between high risk/high reward regions and low risk, low reward regions, which supports all kinds of players. It works.
I worry that with capital cities being the only safe-zones in DF that it might not ever attract a large and diverse enough player population to take off. A lot of people talk about the golden days of UO and ganking carebears but those days are over, PVEers who get chain-ganked will just go back to their PVE MMO, Aventurine won't be able to pay the bills and be forced to change the game, etc.
Personally i think there should be regions of the map that are well enough protected that DF newbies and PVEers can get used to (and hooked on) DF before they venture out of the starter city and are chain ganked by campers. It just makes the chance of DF being a success and able to grow its subscriber base a fair bit higher.
...trammel had no effect on PvP... right....honestly are you crazy? Humans always take the easy route.. which is why everyone started farming in trammel.... making one world on easy mode will always cause that worldspopulation to to higher.. just look at WoW... people as a gorup choose easy mode.. and they did, which ruined PvP.. because it could be avoided entireley.. seriously go on freeshard tho.. they have 1000 people online with lots of people in every city.. go on the most populated OSI shards then the most populated private shards... HUGE difference.. i did it last month
So PvP only works if you can victimize people who don't want to PvP? There's a failed concept. This isn't 2001 people have options. They can go to another game as easily as another server. I've been to the free shards. There aren't "lots of people " in any of them. AND they're FREE. A 1000 people is almost none for a MMO. No subscription MMO could survive on numbers like that. There are a few people who want to play a certain way and no others. That's not a viable MMO.
If there are 1000 people online at the same time, thats like what all of the AOC servers combined in primtetime?
Don't think I can tell you which free shard I play on but I can tell you they average over 800 subs at any given time. Over the last five days they dipped below 600 at 1am on Sunday and have peaks in the 900s most nights.
All you have to do is actually log into a shard. The payed ones are empty. You could stand at Brit bank and see no one for 20-30 minutes. The bank spammers on the free ones are just as annoying as they used to be on the paid servers.
The point is Trammel did kill the fun out of UO, and this is coming from someone who did not like PVP at the time. When Tram came about all of the crafters and resource gathers ran for safety, taking the entire economy with them, while forcing REDS to stay in Fel. With a lower blue population and Fel and a mandatory red population it became more and more difficult to survive and have fun as a blue in Fel. Forcing the blue casual PVPers to to become PVEers. PVE became boring and with more and more magic enhanced items being introduced crafting armor and weapons became obsolete.
Now UO has no active PVP community, No sense of danger for casual PVP, and no player driven economy. It is simply a grind for items, not much different than theme park games.
...trammel had no effect on PvP... right....honestly are you crazy? Humans always take the easy route.. which is why everyone started farming in trammel.... making one world on easy mode will always cause that worldspopulation to to higher.. just look at WoW... people as a gorup choose easy mode.. and they did, which ruined PvP.. because it could be avoided entireley.. seriously go on freeshard tho.. they have 1000 people online with lots of people in every city.. go on the most populated OSI shards then the most populated private shards... HUGE difference.. i did it last month
So PvP only works if you can victimize people who don't want to PvP? There's a failed concept. This isn't 2001 people have options. They can go to another game as easily as another server. I've been to the free shards. There aren't "lots of people " in any of them. AND they're FREE. A 1000 people is almost none for a MMO. No subscription MMO could survive on numbers like that. There are a few people who want to play a certain way and no others. That's not a viable MMO.
QFT. killing people who aren't looking to PVP isn't real PVP anyway, that's just for cowards and bad players, aka griefers. it's those guys who cry and whine the most anyway, all the PVEers want to do is PVE in peace. griefing kills games, not carebears.
DF needs to achieve a balance of safety and risk in order to succeed, too much of either one is bad and will only end in low player population and lots of crying.
Comments
Yes, darkfall be an amazing game.
Well there is certainly a market out there for someone who is brave enough to make a skill based, sandbox style game. I don't think Darkfall has the lore that Ultima does though. Ultima was a classic RPG series that really had a huge player base even before UO was launched. I hope Darkfall has a lot of the same elements, in fact, I hope they completely just rip off orginal UO lol.
Ya this is pretty much a spiritual successor to UO. After looking into a lot of the features it actually appears it may be better then the original UO if the developers can get everything they intend to into the game. I'm looking forward to the pvp combate mostly because it incorporates a lot of elements seen in other skill based games. Having a such a political oriented game will be fun - huge city battles, continent control, and guild rivalries!
I just hope they can get the theif system in a good state for beta... they add so much fun to any game - and i dont even play a thief... i just like battling them :>
Agree Darkfall will be like old UO but better if they can deliver on the features and a somewhat polished game with a skillbased PvP.
Hopefully it produce some headaches among developers creating WoW copies these day and put their focus on making good quality MMORPG again.
I wanna see more good sandboxes being worked on and not just more of the same boring carebear themeparks.
Sandbox FTW
Yes. This game has every feature an experience gamer craves. Many of us are entirely bored with the cookie-cutter mmo-clones that are coming out these days; Darkfall's features are perfect.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I think way to many people are jumping the gun because we have heard about features but what have we really seen? I hope it doesn't turn out like Felucca empty and dead because we all know that people talk about being a hardcore pvp'er and when they get looted and killed over and over they go from hardcore to cry baby.
I would like to see this game in real action so, I'm not going to sing it's praises till then. But I have told my friends about it and we all have mixed feelings and hope for the best. Untill we get to play it though it's not even worth defending or trashing. I really don't understand how people can slam a game they haven't played based on a video yet call someone who defends it and get's really excited about the video an idiot or fanboy or whatever. That is a two way street though and I've seen countless points anointing DF as the end all to all mmorpgs and the same if not more calling it everything from trash to vaporware. Get a life and let the game come out when it does. Or you can just demonstrate how meeningless your life is by worshipingflaming a game that isn't even out.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I didn't really say EQ and UO were the same, I know they weren't, I played UO for 4 years. However, its still a clone of UO are you crying for. I agree, there are lots of features UO had that other games never took but one of them WASN'T FFA PvP, which is the main point of Darkfall. They made Trammel and saved the game from disaster. If DF doesn't have a "Tram" but it plays like UO, it will fail horribly. UO almost failed with no competitors before Tram, DF is up against tons of other games now, I hope they realize this.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I didn't really say EQ and UO were the same, I know they weren't, I played UO for 4 years. However, its still a clone of UO are you crying for. I agree, there are lots of features UO had that other games never took but one of them WASN'T FFA PvP, which is the main point of Darkfall. They made Trammel and saved the game from disaster. If DF doesn't have a "Tram" but it plays like UO, it will fail horribly. UO almost failed with no competitors before Tram, DF is up against tons of other games now, I hope they realize this.
True, DF doesn't have anything like Tram, but I rarely played in Tram, and I know a great many people who didn't spend much time in the non FFA PvP mirror of the original UO.
Personally I've always believed that there were other ways of fixing the rampant PKing that the early UO experienced. Narrowing the gap in power between new and old players would have helped, for example. Using a FPS combat system also helps as it's familiar to most gamers and it upsets the balance that consistantly puts the advantage in the hands of the character with the older account.
Funny Uo story:
I had a friend (girl) who as getting married in Ultima Online. So i wanted to wreck her wedding so i made an alt named genleo and got a friend to tame a beetle for me. There were at least 30 people in this castle and 3 other people were planning to assassinate her cuz she was a shadowlord or whatever it was!! Howeverrr i released the beetle on herr killing her just before she was about to say I do and thus ruining the wedding resuliting in great times!!
I still bounce around on old-school Ultima freeshards since that game to me is still more fun than most of the stuff out there, especially the level and gear grinds of WoW. Risk vs. Reward should always be a central theme in a game. There is so much more thrill when you have a chance to die and lose all that you've worked for in the last hour.
I honestly don't know how so many people find WoW to be fun. That being said I'm actually giving Warhammer a shot right now and finding it a lot more bearable but I'd sure as hell drop it in a heartbeat for Darkfall... It's pretty similar to WoW but definitely differentiates itself in many ways. The whole leveling idea I still find to be totally bogus and can't wait to see what crazy templates people will come up with in DF..
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Self-confessed DF fanboy. Finally a real ****ing MMO.
I'm all for a new UO, but its just hypocritical to say "We don't want a mmo-clone! We want an UO MMO-clone!" You want a clone and the developers realize you want a clone, but they just pick games to clone that make millions and millions more money than the clone you want. Sad but true.
The interesting thing is that UO plays so much differently than EQ and its rivals, that it's really hard for me to put them in the same genere. I think DF is going back to UO and the MMO roots to try branching out along a slightly different evolutionary path.
Given that there are still a lot of people playing UO dispite the array of successors it's had over the years in the MMO market, I'd say this isn't a half bad idea. Obviously there were ideas in UO that a lot of gamers enjoyed which didn't get transfered over to EQ or its subsequent clones.
I didn't really say EQ and UO were the same, I know they weren't, I played UO for 4 years. However, its still a clone of UO are you crying for. I agree, there are lots of features UO had that other games never took but one of them WASN'T FFA PvP, which is the main point of Darkfall. They made Trammel and saved the game from disaster. If DF doesn't have a "Tram" but it plays like UO, it will fail horribly. UO almost failed with no competitors before Tram, DF is up against tons of other games now, I hope they realize this.
Trammel didnt affect the number of subs positive. On the contrary, many hardcore PvP players left the game cause they felt abandoned by OSI.
What really was the final nail in the UO coffin was AoS, Age of Shadows. This was a carebear patch that remade the game into a item dependable one.
Age of Shadows was introduced february 2003 and by watching this MMOG active subscription chart of UO you can see that the real downfall of UO came with the carebear patch Age of Shadows february 2003.
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
Saying trammel saved UO is a Myth created by the carebears.
Age of Shadows was what destroyed UO.
Or in other words, carebear implementations destroyed UO.
Have a nice one
Concerning the AoS patch, if the "hardcore" PvPers say it is so, then it is so!
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
i just hope DF is smart enough to provide enough protection to PVEers to keep them in the game otherwise this game will die from lack of players.
it needs to achieve the balance EVE did, where hardcore PVEers can co-exist in the same game world as hardcore PVPers.
Trammel was introduced in May of 2000. By MMOcharts it had no effect on subscriptions at all they continued to rise. It didn't save UO but it didn't kill it either. AoS was introduced in Febuary of 2003. In March of 2003 UO reached 250,000 subscriptions the higest ever. After AoS. AoS did make the game more item centric. Most PvP games are also item centric. It's not a "carebear" trait. It's just bad game design in my opinion. At that time the game was almost six years old already and other games were pulling people away. There's no proof AoS destroyed UO. In fact MMOcharts says UO is still has 70,000 subscribers. It's not been destroyed at all. Not bad for a game launched ten years ago this month.
Look at the chart again and youll see the number of subs flatened out after Age of Shadows were introduced with it's carebear features and from there on it's been all downhill for the game UO.
Making a game like UO item dependable is making it a carebear one. It removes the skill focus from playerskill to having the best gears.
It was also what killed the game Ultima Online once and for all.
Freeshards have been the oasis for the hardcore PvP players that seek there skillbased game, not a gear dependable one. Carebears ruined UO.
Edit - it says alot when the freeshards have more people playing the game then the original one. Then someone made a severe mistake. That mistake was Age of Shadows.
Its up to yourself to create that protection, not something Developers shoud bring to the table.
Join a large clan thats interested in roleplaying, PvE, exploring and whatever.
There's clans of thousand of members already existing making preparations for the game.
I stubed my toe yesterday and gas prices went up $1.50 a gallon. Obviously stubbing my toe causes an increase in gas prices. That's called a Non Sequitur. So is your assertion. We know subscription numbers fell we don't know why.
Making a game item centric adds the burden of obtaining items. It does not remove skill. A skilled player naked, with perfect gear, or any where in between will defeat an unskilled player similarly equipped. Skill has not been removed another requirement, gear, has been added. Gear always mattered in UO. as did skill "percentage" It's simply a matter of degree not a change in basic mechanics. If you don't believe gear will matter in Darkfll play without it.
[sarcasm] Or are you a carebear who needs gear to win instead of skill? [/sarcasm]
Gear centricity is not a feature of carebearism. Few would call Shadowbane a carebear game, and they would be wrong. Gear is vital to PvP in Shadowbane and most other PvP games to the point you cannot win without it no matter how skilled you are. That doesn't make people who PvP almost exclusively carebears for using it. You saying it is so does not make it so.
Horseshit. Just like SWG died when SOE obliterated it, OSI (I'll always call it that :P ) ruined Ultima Online with more and more anti-PK measures. Starting with stat loss (which didnt bother me, as it gave us something to worry about), ending with Trammel, insurance on items, and other IDIOTIC features, that game has been dying slowly.
Here's why - they turned the perfect PvP game toward PvE. The game, engine, graphics, feel, economy, etc, simply isnt suited for PvE gameplay. It just isnt. Sit in Wind and farm dragons/daemons for seven hours, going through four reg bags - see how much fun it is.
Bottom line - Ultima will always run off of PvP mayhem, no matter if its Bill the Murderer getting ganked by 10 noto blues, or John the Carebear getting anally penetrated by six Reds who para-whore him. It will ALWAYS be successful with PvP.
Dont believe it? Look at the free shards. Plenty of population on there, and carebears are generally used as blow-up dolls for Bubba "Zomg 1478 Long Counts!" Jones.
I stubed my toe yesterday and gas prices went up $1.50 a gallon. Obviously stubbing my toe causes an increase in gas prices. That's called a Non Sequitur. So is your assertion. We know subscription numbers fell we don't know why.
Making a game item centric adds the burden of obtaining items. It does not remove skill. A skilled player naked, with perfect gear, or any where in between will defeat an unskilled player similarly equipped. Skill has not been removed another requirement, gear, has been added. Gear always mattered in UO. as did skill "percentage" It's simply a matter of degree not a change in basic mechanics. If you don't believe gear will matter in Darkfll play without it.
[sarcasm] Or are you a carebear who needs gear to win instead of skill? [/sarcasm]
Gear centricity is not a feature of carebearism. Few would call Shadowbane a carebear game, and they would be wrong. Gear is vital to PvP in Shadowbane and most other PvP games to the point you cannot win without it no matter how skilled you are. That doesn't make people who PvP almost exclusively carebears for using it. You saying it is so does not make it so.
Horseshit. Just like SWG died when SOE obliterated it, OSI (I'll always call it that :P ) ruined Ultima Online with more and more anti-PK measures. Starting with stat loss (which didnt bother me, as it gave us something to worry about), ending with Trammel, insurance on items, and other IDIOTIC features, that game has been dying slowly.
Here's why - they turned the perfect PvP game toward PvE. The game, engine, graphics, feel, economy, etc, simply isnt suited for PvE gameplay. It just isnt. Sit in Wind and farm dragons/daemons for seven hours, going through four reg bags - see how much fun it is.
Bottom line - Ultima will always run off of PvP mayhem, no matter if its Bill the Murderer getting ganked by 10 noto blues, or John the Carebear getting anally penetrated by six Reds who para-whore him. It will ALWAYS be successful with PvP.
Dont believe it? Look at the free shards. Plenty of population on there, and carebears are generally used as blow-up dolls for Bubba "Zomg 1478 Long Counts!" Jones.
lol this post makes me happy
and to: zymurgeist
ok seriously... the release of bad expansions and sub numbers are not non-sequitur
Remember Old School Ultima Online
Trammel had no effect on PvP. Felucca was still there unchanged. The problem with Felucca is no one wanted to play there. The game was always a huge grind. Extending the grind was a bad idea but it wasn't fundamentally a carebear change. Mostly because the lack of easy targets had driven off most of the PvP-centric crowd. Fighting eachother on felucca was unthinkable. I've looked at the shards. More people still pay the subscription than play the free shards.
...trammel had no effect on PvP... right....honestly are you crazy? Humans always take the easy route.. which is why everyone started farming in trammel.... making one world on easy mode will always cause that worldspopulation to to higher.. just look at WoW...
people as a gorup choose easy mode.. and they did, which ruined PvP.. because it could be avoided entireley..
seriously go on freeshard tho.. they have 1000 people online with lots of people in every city.. go on the most populated OSI shards then the most populated private shards... HUGE difference.. i did it last month
Remember Old School Ultima Online
personally i think there should be zones/regions that are "quite safe", similar to EVE, meaning that you can attack anyone anywhere, but if you attack someone in high security space, the NPC police warp in and wtfpwn you. It's not completely safe though because thieves/gankers can alpha-strike a transport ship loaded with valuable gear, effectively suiciding it, then your group-mates loot the victim's and your gear for huge profit. it happens a lot.
It's possible to play the whole game in high-security regions in EVE, and while essentially safe, it's not very lucrative. all the real money is in the non-safe areas.
Point is, EVE has managed to create a graduated balance between high risk/high reward regions and low risk, low reward regions, which supports all kinds of players. It works.
I worry that with capital cities being the only safe-zones in DF that it might not ever attract a large and diverse enough player population to take off. A lot of people talk about the golden days of UO and ganking carebears but those days are over, PVEers who get chain-ganked will just go back to their PVE MMO, Aventurine won't be able to pay the bills and be forced to change the game, etc.
Personally i think there should be regions of the map that are well enough protected that DF newbies and PVEers can get used to (and hooked on) DF before they venture out of the starter city and are chain ganked by campers. It just makes the chance of DF being a success and able to grow its subscriber base a fair bit higher.
So PvP only works if you can victimize people who don't want to PvP? There's a failed concept. This isn't 2001 people have options. They can go to another game as easily as another server. I've been to the free shards. There aren't "lots of people " in any of them. AND they're FREE. A 1000 people is almost none for a MMO. No subscription MMO could survive on numbers like that. There are a few people who want to play a certain way and no others. That's not a viable MMO.
If there are 1000 people online at the same time, thats like what all of the AOC servers combined in primtetime?
Don't think I can tell you which free shard I play on but I can tell you they average over 800 subs at any given time. Over the last five days they dipped below 600 at 1am on Sunday and have peaks in the 900s most nights.
All you have to do is actually log into a shard. The payed ones are empty. You could stand at Brit bank and see no one for 20-30 minutes. The bank spammers on the free ones are just as annoying as they used to be on the paid servers.
The point is Trammel did kill the fun out of UO, and this is coming from someone who did not like PVP at the time. When Tram came about all of the crafters and resource gathers ran for safety, taking the entire economy with them, while forcing REDS to stay in Fel. With a lower blue population and Fel and a mandatory red population it became more and more difficult to survive and have fun as a blue in Fel. Forcing the blue casual PVPers to to become PVEers. PVE became boring and with more and more magic enhanced items being introduced crafting armor and weapons became obsolete.
Now UO has no active PVP community, No sense of danger for casual PVP, and no player driven economy. It is simply a grind for items, not much different than theme park games.
So PvP only works if you can victimize people who don't want to PvP? There's a failed concept. This isn't 2001 people have options. They can go to another game as easily as another server. I've been to the free shards. There aren't "lots of people " in any of them. AND they're FREE. A 1000 people is almost none for a MMO. No subscription MMO could survive on numbers like that. There are a few people who want to play a certain way and no others. That's not a viable MMO.
QFT. killing people who aren't looking to PVP isn't real PVP anyway, that's just for cowards and bad players, aka griefers. it's those guys who cry and whine the most anyway, all the PVEers want to do is PVE in peace. griefing kills games, not carebears.
DF needs to achieve a balance of safety and risk in order to succeed, too much of either one is bad and will only end in low player population and lots of crying.