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The most unbalanced game ever
InitialDOA
Member Posts: 99
in Dark Ages
This was my first MMO 
I lived and died by it over 3 years 
This has to be the only game I know to give the highest offensive AND highest defensive ability to one character class in a game with not only 5, but the ability to cross path. 
I havent played recently though. Who knows whats been changed. If a single skill/item/enemy in the game changes it throws everything totally off balance. 
It still amuses me that at adoration players spend their life savings on objects to increase their stats by 2 points. Ive never seen such a starved community
Comments
I Can & I Will
The game's core classes are somewhat unbalanced, but all of the newer areas, classes, gear and spells are all making the game balanced. New areas are constantly being released, and the ability cap hasn't even been reached yet, leaving much potential for community recognition.
The game is very simplistic in its mechanics. Nothing spectacular there. The uniqueness of it is in its level of player control. You need other players for everything, even joining your chosen class. Players make up the police force, legal system and the clergy. You have to have support of other players (get elected as a respected citizen) and do certain things (mentor new players) to do certain things. Granted, if you're not looking for trouble, you'll probably never cross paths with "the authorities" but it can be difficult to get other players to help you if you're not very outgoing or sociable.
Note: Dark Ages is extremely role-play sensitive. Even your choice of name can greatly influence your ability to function well in society. Certain non-role-play words are "translated" for you. For instance, "afk" is translated to "dreaming." "LOL" becomes "laughing."
If you are a solitary player, you probably won't get far in Dark Ages for several reasons. The primary reason is that the bulk of the player base is made up of old-timers who are well entrenched and set in their ways. Unless you are outgoing enough to pierce those walls, you'll probably feel rather alone. I've registered, leveled a priest up to +11 and wandered around the various hunting areas and never got one offer to hunt. That's just insane if priests are still as needed as they used to be.
There are a couple classes that can solo pretty well at lower levels, but there will come a time when you need a group to hunt well. The last time I played the game semi-seriously, I ended up registering two accounts so the characters on one account could "vote" for the characters on the other account in order to get the almost required "respected citizen" mark. That's mostly because I'm not a very outgoing or sociable person. I come to play, not really to socialize.
In its defense, however, the first time I played the game years ago, I had a blast, and that was before all the new areas, master classes and sub-classes were introduced.
I have played this game for 7 years(or simply since Deoch 12, sometime in 2000), so I can give some useful information about it.
Back when it was release, it was an extremely fun game, the subpath implementation brought a lot of your so-called "unbalance", which I agree. Dark Ages IS a completely unbalanced game, doubts? Compare a Monk/Warrior or a Wizard/Priest to a Pure Rogue, or even ANY Rogue subs(Rogue/Wiz, Rogue/Priest etc.), it's not even fair, both in PvE and PvP.
Speaking of PvP, Dark Ages' Player vs. Player enviroment is ridiculous, for some hardcore players, it's "the only fun thing" left in the game. Although, with such an unbalanced difference between the classes, most you'll ever see in the arenas are the famous meta classes, such as Monk/Warriors, Wizard/Priests, Warrior/Monks and Priest/Wizards, some may even add Pure Warriors(Which by the way, were empowered overtime, screwing old Warrior/Monks and other Warrior subs). If you play any other class other than those, chances are that you'll suck and not enjoy the PvP at all.
Let's talk about it's costumer service. One word for it: Lame. DA doesn't have active GM's, instead, they appointed some players as Rangers and Knights, who keep the justice within the game, and report anything unusual to DA Team.
The DA Team also takes a long time to answer player tickets(their method of costumer service), and most of times, their answer doesn't help at all. Standard answers such as: "We'll investigate further about it" makes you realize how much they care.
They also consider minor bug exploits that brings no benefits to player such as a "board abuse exploit" as a more threating hack than the famous speedhacking, thereof they can block an account permanently for the 1st cause, but not for the second(common sense, please).
The game doesn't have enough hunting areas for all its players, it's something around 5 hunting areas for an usual 800 online players. Go figure.
Role-playing? It's dead. It has been dead for at least three years now(maybe more). Times when role-playing was encouraged and required in some towns, are never coming back.
Player-run politics? Think of an corrupt kid with a lot of ego who has many friends to support him. That's Dark Ages politic system. Need I say more? No.
And last but not least, GROUP HUNTING. You only play Dark Ages up to insight(level) 60. Reason? You'll suffer a lot finding hunts after that, because everyone else is BEING LEECHED TO 99. Although recent updates made it harder to leech, it's far from ending. Group hunting has become a myth, 50% of the current players haven't group hunted until they mastered.
My personal rate? 2/10
Dark Ages takes a lot of time to make a decent character, and after you're finally done, you realize that you have spent a long time just to become another one among many(You'll never be unique).
Obnoxious crap game flamer.
I agree wholeheartedly with your first point. In the Arena, certain classes are just plain good against other ones. You won't walk into the Arena with a Wizard/Warrior expecting to be very victorious -- the people in Arena have hunted a lot, having high HP and MP totals gained through time, and have perfected skills and dueling strategies. It's hard to succeed in this environment.
The customer service is slow, but it has been a step up from when the company was owned by Nexon. KRU Interactive is currently running three games on mininal staff, and producing a third (Nexus TK, Dark Ages, Shattered Galaxy, and producing Knuckleball Online.) Responses to support tickets are generally expected within a business week for serious issues, or up to a month for unimportant issues. This is fine to me, however, as since KRU took over, I have never had a problem getting a response from the company that wasn't worth reading.
There is a Terms of Service to the game, and if you do not abide by it, you can expect to be blocked. Things like using Cheat Engine to view boards that wouldn't otherwise be able to be viewed is pretty much hardcore cheating, same with speedhacking. You're not earning anything, you're taking the easy way out. You know you're doing something immoral from the start, the program does say 'Cheat' on it, after all -- so I will shed no tears over those players being blocked. Some players pride themselves on fair play in games.
Dark Ages does have Game Masters -- Eduardo, Phorbin, Vevila, and Kru are active when they need to be. They work very hard with the players for a multitude of different things. It's probably one of the only games where you get to interact with the Game Masters on such a friendly basis as we do. Knights are mediators, appointed through recognition of outstanding service, and help the company with things that they shouldn't be taking time out of their schedule for. Rangers enforce the simpler aspects of the Terms of Service, such as profanity and auto-hunting skill levels. These players get fame, recognition, and in-game items for doing these services, and most are happy with that they do, until they're on the 'criminal' end.
The game could use more hunting areas for masters. I'm not going to refute this comment, even though we have roughly 300 less players during peak time than Inimigo says we do, some of our hunting areas were revised recently to make them a bit too difficult to comfortably hunt experience in. I'm sure there is a fix for this in the works.
Roleplaying is far from dead; an entire town was dedicated to pure roleplaying, with events going on all of the time. Roleplayers are easily found in religious temples or politics, and may even be found walking around your favorite town... the only reason people cry roleplaying is dead is becuase KRU has made choosing a class easier for new players. Players used to have to be initiated into a class from a member of that existing class; they no longer do now. KRU interactive is simply making the game more user-friendly for new customers.
Player-run politics are fun and fair; you just have to keep in mind that the law is on your side, should you know it fully. People make mistakes, get probation on Guard, or get removed from Guard. Learn from your mistakes and try again. Succeed in knowing law and outlast your peers; in essence, from a WoW player's perspective, they would say, 'QQ and do something.' Most people who complain about politics are the ones who alienate themselves from other officials, refuse to cooperate with Knights, maybe even the mundanes. Sorry about your luck, you seem to be affected in a negative way by the roleplaying and political aspects of Dark Ages.
People will always take the easy way out through leeching, though those people who get leeched will not have high skill levels and will have to train skills for much more time than the average normal-hunter would, resulting in, most likely, jailings for auto-hunting.
My character is unique. Perhaps you should look at the game you're playing a little harder, gain some more confidence in yourself, motivate yourself to become someone big, because you can, I have done it, and try again.
2/10 on your post
9/10 on the Dark Ages game.
If you'd like to make an accurate assessment of this game's mechanics, i've played for quite a long time, and am friends with many players who have played since the game first opened (beta and publicly.) I will be happy to discuss these things with you, and clear up any confusion you may have. This goes for any player/potential player of the game!
No, Elvendar, you probably didn't know me back when I played, I've never been in politics, nor a top-list, neither a 'pwner' in arena to be known. I was though, the leader of Tearmunn(from there, some may know the character) for something around 2-3 years. It was fun, the people were nice, nothing to complain about it, but that is not the point.
As I said, Dark Ages *WAS* extremely fun back when it was released, it may still be awesome for a lot of people who plays it nowadays, but some people who joined Dark Ages back then, loved the game how it was, and from there on started losing interest on the game due to how the game was evolving. In my opinion, over the years, Dark Ages have become more like the other MMORPG's out there, which made it lose its uniqueness.
When I said role-playing was dead, I meant it. Restricting ONE town(which by the way, is a town players rarely ever go) in the game for role-playing, shows how much the role-playing was weakened. Role-playing was active in every town in the game, you could get banished from Mileth just for saying "South Park" without brackets (()).
All I can say, is that everyone who wants to play Dark Ages, should do so, regardless of how I rate the game, because that is just my personal perspective of the game, and not an official review.
Obnoxious crap game flamer.
I was also a member of DAH. Was a fun forum to browse, even when you weren't interested in playing DA.
But I quit since then. I'm tempted to go back, but everytime I do, I just get held back by the older style of graphics and movement (mainly the movement. Its horrible to play, since I've played other games). I still look back and see all the good times I had on that game, and wish they could come back, but they can't
It still amuses me that at adoration players spend their life savings on objects to increase their stats by 2 points. Ive never seen such a starved community
Thats because, in order for you, if you're going to cross class, (Priz especially, but Wiest as well), those few points may make or break your ability to get certain spells. And when you're cross classing, you want all the spells you can get. Those 2 or 4 Points you get are very worth it.
pangsta
Graphics packs are updated as soon as possible. The Korean version of Dark Ages, Legend of Darkness, just got a few major graphics and gameplay updates, and we should be getting the same within the next year or two.
This was one of the few MMORPG's I have ever paid for, and in it's time I probably enjoyed this game more than any other. I played this for maybe 3 years total, I played once, made a pure warrior and mastered him, then quit after not being able to get any hunts. I later made another pure warrior and practically did the same thing. My name was Sephiex both times, a name I often use.
The graphics aren't the best, and they sure aren't getting better as time goes by. But they're not that bad. The community seems to be gradually decaying from the few times I've made a trial character just to see how everything's going. I think this game might be able to still be fun if you have friends to play with, but I'm not a very social person myself and thus it was really hard to get hunts with anyone when they could get some monk/war that was probably twice as good as me. I've got a lot of memories from this game though, and it's not likely I'll ever forget it. One of the other things that kind of bothered me was the amount of "auto-hunting" it takes to master, at least for a warrior. I spent hours using that damn Wind-blade on some stuck gargoyle in Dubhaim castle, and I would just play another game while I had some heavy object sitting on my "1" key. Of course I had to check on it every once in a while, to make sure no guards or monsters were coming.
If the community was growing instead of shrinking, and the role-play was a bit more prevalent--or at least as prevalent as it used to be, then I might actually consider going back to this game. It was a good game.
It was sad to see so many of the players in the game are so pathetic that the community didn't support their political agendas, so they had to create entire accounts just to participate in politics. Some even went to the extreme of having as many as 10 accounts active at a time, just to "clout" their own characters.
Pathetic.
Stormbow, I liked you better without pants
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- Kouge
I don't get the point of these comments, like "This game is too old"; "Its graphics are outdated". Oh, come on, that's like judging a book by its cover. Gaphics doesn't and will never make a game good! Check Lineage 2 for example, people just play it because of its graphics, and it's like, ridiculous! Dark Ages is awesome, I enjoyed it a lot while a played, and it's completely innovative. It is unique in a thousand ways, differently of today's MMORPGs, which look all the same.
I find the political/religious system perfect, but unfortunately, like it was said above, they've found a way to leak it. The game is not as good as before, not just because of the recent changes (including buying items through money), but specially because of the community. It has changed, a lot. And KRU is changing this game in such a way that soon it'll become one of the other thousands of korean games. Players are little by little becoming just "another person in the crowd".
Hello everyone!
Well, about Dark Ages,, It ruined my experience with all the other MMORPG.. Let me explain why: I played for two years or so (I still have my account, but I don't wanna pay $10 to play one hour/week) and I just LOVE IT! It is the BEST game I've ever played. Yes, there are people complaining about the graphics, but I'll tell you what: it doesnt really matter to me. It is actually a good thing! The game isn't heavy as most of the games now. And yes, you have to know people to get far on the game. I was intruduced to the game by my ex, who played for a loooong time. We had a guild (Resistencia), formed mainly of Brazilain players, and that's what made us "strong". We always had hunts because of that. We started as a warrior (myself) and a wizard (my ex bf) so we hunted together till the very end. We subbed for Warrior/Monk and Wizard/Priest and kept hunting together, sometimes with other players. I received many hunt requests as well as he did. But yes, you do have to look for it, go out and ask. But please, it's not THAT hard. I also had a priest and a monk and I invited many times to go hunting with other people.
As I said before, this is the best game I've ever played. It has a "meaning". You get involved with the game. You make new friends, you hang out with other players, you can get involved in politics or religions if you want to. You can work you way up in the game. You can make yourself a unique character, and then you'll be known in the game. It is really addictive. It is better if you have someone with experience to introduce you to the game.
Roleplaying is not dead. You'll find lots of people still doing it, even in Mileth! And if you wanna do it, you'll probably find someone to join you.
I'm currently looking for a game to "replace" Dark Ages, but free. I dont have much time to spend at games, so I dont think it is worth to pay when sometimes I dont get to play for weeks. If any of you guys know anything, let me know.
Thanks!
Dark Ages? 10/10!!!
If this game was alot more honest and if they made the effort to equalize the hunting capacity's of all path's and not make the wizards the only ones who can solo in the higher classes,then maybe alot of people would stay and play and pay for this game.If you look at the list of players and they're legend then you will see not much older players,only the ones who are in some guilds and have the time to hunt every day can join groups to hunt.All others can stand on the sideline being bored to death and wait in vain for a hunt.People who made an effort to become on the highest classes quit because no one will hunt with them and none of them are able to solo anything.Another major thing in this game is the word random used for rewards and drops on certain hunting grounds.Well it means that always the same people get lucky and others can hunt until they turn blue without ever getting anything. I know because i hunted canals more then 100 times and never got anything.The only reason i stay on the game is for the friends i made but then again i play another game so i can enjoy a little hunting time to time
I think the main problem darkages is having these days is a lack of new players. Everyone on the game is a master. New players cant get hunts because there's no one their level to hunt with. And when an older player decides to make a new character, they simply leech them to 99 in a few days and master them in about a week or so. By the time new players are getting to 71 they quit because they cant get hunts. Also, the older players refuse to help newer players. Maybe if like 50 people all started at once then it would help.. but for right now I see the amount of players on the game slowly decreasing.
And to all the people that wont try the game because of the 2d graphics, I suggest you give it a shot anyway. I think the fact that its not 3d helps. its alot less confusing when it comes to casting spells and stuff like that.
Gross exaggeration is evident in 90% of the posts in this thread.
Stormbow was an abusive player who often used his friends to achieve his own means; But I won't even get into this. Simply put, just because someone comes here trolling the game, even if they have played it, does not mean anyone's experience is going to be the same.
Every class has the ability to solo (this coming from a person who has had a master of every class.) Figuring out how to use each class solo is a trial that not many pass. Simply put, only skilled, understanding players will be able to solo with their chosen class; Others will be left to hunt with groups.
Randomness in boss drops is only evident in endgame runs. If you've played WoW before, you can think of it as a raid environment; You're probably going to be running a while before you get that Sulfuron Hammer you want. But the boss runs are fun and require intuition, strategy, and timing. They also reward a decent experience bonus at the end, and along the way.
There's a reason canals boss bag drop rates are low: Canals has some of the best items in the game. Shinguards go for 220 million coins, the highest out of any item (excluding one of a kind items like the oak staff,) and is HIGHLY sought after despite costing almost 20 times more than your basic master item.
I dont like how bashers classes can not solo "effectively" without a priest or wizard. And prizards can solo all over the place, and get like 30-100 mil exp an hour.
I gonna have to agree with zero, I'm basically a new player. I started several months ago (I made a warrior). I went up to level 1 to 70ish in 3 weeks. then all of a sudden the game got boring, not because of the game. But the players, It seems that they all get "leeched" to 99 in two days and then master the next week. while im stuck here blowing snot bubbles in house macrabe or east woodlands. I basically solo'ed my way to 99 (except for that one instance were some bard took me cr 30 and I gained like 5 levels) and I eventually mastered. It took me 4 months
.
getting back on topic; im a freshly mastered warrior, and i was thinking Im gonna get more hunts. Unfortunalty getting a hunt is very time consuming it takes me 4-6 hours to get a group going, or not finding one at all. becuase they're maxed gladiators and summoners taking the priests and wizards (rogues too) that I hunted with in my pre-master days. And the sad thing about it Is THEY IGNORE YOU, well not completely its just that they dont respond after they ask what class i am. Here is a typical response:
Me: Hi "insert name here" care for a hunt?
Priest: hi, where? and class?
Me: Master Warrior, cr 30 or mtg
i get no answer 20 mins later, or i get a no thanks. One wiest I use to hunt with with was blunt about it, he said that he rather 2 man mtg with a gladiator than with me. well atleast he was honest about it. One last hang-up I had with the classes is that, there is no versitility. You dont see 2 warriors hunting with a rogue. or a monk hunting with 2 wizards. Its either find a priest and wizard (or wiest/priz) or no hunt at all. I know that its a mmo but other mmo's I played had ALOT more variety with group hunting. soloing?? if your a warrior you will be soloing atleast 5-10 mil an hour (if your unmaxed that is). whats even worse is that people can duel log on other chars they made and leech themselves, how am i supposed to find a hunt if people can exp leech them selves, especially if the population cap is limited. yea im complaining about it. but this is really full of crap. you have to be uber to get a hunt, even freshly mastered casters will reject you. Yea they hunt with you one day, but tommorow they wont and will not hunt with you and ask if I have Paralyze Force, LAAAMMEE. oh and it has to be 2-3 man hunts, becuase people are so caught up in getting maxed stats faster or say that its a waste of time. To me 5-10 man hunts are alot of fun, but this rarely if ever happens.. thats all i got to say about this. some would say that i should befriend more people on here. I did and its one of the three extremes
A. they quit or dont hunt at all (Unregistered for some cases)
B. other warriors and monks that cant find hunts either
C. they ditched me after they reached level 80 -_-
here is my favorite comment from the guys that play this game. "QQ if you dont like it , leave."
fine, bye... its not like im playing it anyways. I cant find hunts!!
any opinions on this?? maybe i'm jumping the gun on this
A lot of players have this problem, especially warriors. This is because there's such a huge amount of warriors. Playing a priest you generally get flooded from whispers from every other class, you rarely need someone to offer you a hunt.
A good solution to this is finding a hunting guild. Finding hunts has always been hard, and ever since I started I was in guilds with maybe 8 active members tops, most of whom were political people and already had stable hunting partners or no experience hunting at all. I picked the wrong guilds for hunting!
Eventually I wound up forming my own guild to hunt and progress in the game in a stable fashion, trying to get everyone hooked up with hunting partners and good gear. So far we've got (in my opinion) some of the best players in the game ready to train more.
So, yeah, my only advice would be to find a good guild >_>
How about a Monk? like a pure monk...back when I was playing not only did I dont get much hunts I also sucked, XP
It was quite a few years back, but I found a couple of ways to get good hunts though...
If you got some spare money, you can like help out some newb and get em to your lvl, time consuming, but it worked for me. Cause back at my time, normally I can never find or have a decent hunt with my pure monk, he just kill stuff way to slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I invested quite a bit on a few ppl, became awesome friends, helped my guy out nicely, and there I go. Almost always able to get em to help me with hunts and eventually I can bash decently well =D But by that time I got bored and just decided to help ppl out instead cause it actually pretty fun.
Or you can always get a few friends irl or online to play with ya, I'm sure they'll be more helpful than random dudes.
But yeah, I agree with the other people, this game gets kind of boring after a while where you cant find ppl to hunt with or you get fed up with ppl thats better than you that keep on pissing you off, lol
Anyways, I dunno about now, but back when I did played, this game was pretty nice although its 2D it has something that other 3D games doesnt, like a community LOL and politics and all that stuff, a lot of the other 3D games I've played. You're most of the time solo-ing cause you can buy potions or can easily form a party with random warriors or a bashing priest, Haha
Last thing, regarding to the title, the most unbalance game ever? I guess I have to agree to a good degree. A pure monk back in my days, without becoming a druid, was painful...You're usually weaker than any other master monks cause most of them are warrior/monk or soemthing like that, so they all those nice attacks while the only extra thing you get is whirlwind attack, which isnt strong and you take away your hp while...you're attacking 4 ways and most likely if you do that you'll die right after if you dun have dion on. Which usually not all monks have it, at least not those that are supported by another account and friends that leeches them.
Nice isnt it? And further more, your master weapon is in the strongest master quest (at least to me), so you're basically stuck with weaker attacks, suicidal attack and weapon that have very lil differences between other master monks...for the majority of your time. Isnt that great?
Well yeah, you might be thinking that subs vs pure, subs should be better since they got better skills right? But if you compare it with other pure classes, like warriors, monks get a crappy suicidal attack (which is retarded it attacks 4 ways, if it actually hit 4 sides, you should be telling yourself, why the hell did I do that? I'm already in deep shit yet I just blew away most my hp) while the pure warriors get some actually useful skills.
All this talking of the old times makes me wanna see how the game is now, Haha,