Darkfall New Dawn launches in less than a week. Check out the website to see changes, many of the problems I outlined are seeming to be remedied (well not the conversation of content/population YET). This might be our last chance to make this game work guys. darkfallnewdawn.com/
I've actually met the Greek Darkfall guys here in Greece, during a Greek Game Developers' conference. The producer, Tasos, seemed quite arrogant, claiming their game was state of the art and had millions of players, when it looked severely outdated even in 2008...
I've also met him a couple of times through my line of work. I wasn't aware that he was a game developer but almost immediately I could tell that the guy was full of shit. I couldn't take him seriously.
I had a darkfall fan site that sold subscriptions, technically profitable, but not worth the time. Definitely the brittle nature of it all is what made it so exciting. I mostly played as a solo player, living in constant fear of larger PK kill squads rampaging across the land, fueled by their exploity-guild infrastructure. The David-vs-Goliath analogy perfectly described my relationship with the game. There were lots of low-value targets a small band of players could assault. No guild could be everywhere, and in the those tiny dark crevices of Agon, small-scale combat and serial-killing was alive and well, silhouetted against the server-shattering wars that made the headlines. Sadly, it did feel like a big empty world ruled by cheaters. Solo players, "sheep like me" if you will, had to work twice as hard to get mediocre equipment, only to lose it to somebody who clearly didn't even need it. So many great memories. I remember one time I was solo-pking in the mahirim lands when a band of 3 mounted guys attacked me. I led them on a chase that stretched all the way back to the safety of the Dwarven capital. It was the most intense experience I have ever had in a videogame. Being a hair's breadth from losing all my gear for over 30 minutes of constant running past spawns and through hostile player towns. In the end, they pushed their mounts so hard to keep up with me that two of their mounts died, and in a crazy maneuver I managed to steal the last guy's mount and escape, using some random dude in the world who was mining in the wrong place at the wrong time as a distraction. My hands were cold, sweaty, shaking, and my heart was going a mile a minute. Immensely satisfying. RIP Darkfall.
Sorry for the typo, fell asleep at the wheel boys. But hopefully everyone enjoys the upgrade in quality. Thank our new editor Tom Davies for that. He's the man, and we will have more like this coming. Me trying out an editor is why I took so long to make this specific one. Thanks for the patience and hopefully it was worth.
I know the reason I quit was because certain groups (TM, LOD, etc) got caught cheating over and over and over but never even got a slap on the wrist because they had connections to AV. Meanwhile dudes in my guild who pushed TM out of certain bugged spawns got the hammer for doing the same thing to try to catch up.
I have heard some concerns over the New Dawn portion of my video, just so people know. I chose to barely go into the details between the game, and the philosophies of both versions of the game. If you want to have a better understanding of both, please just go to either games websites and read their road-maps. A good start for New Dawn would be here. darkfallnewdawn.com/2016-06-21-what-is-new-in-new-dawn/ And for ROA check this one out www.darkfallriseofagon.com/game/development/early-access-road-map-2017/
Can you please do death of a game of Pathfinder Online? it was basically going to be the same as Darkfall and they actually got pretty far with development but Ryan Dancey starting hating on pvp and wanting the game to go in a pve/consensual combat direction which ruined the fanbase and made their forums toxic as people were ripped off from them paying/preorder for a pvp freedom game but getting pve instead after they had paid $40-1000 or more for it.
Pathfinder Online would be interesting to hear about, yeah, although I don't quite agree with your analysis on it's death being due to "Ryan Dancey beginning to dislike PVP at some point in time." There's a lot to go about in there, like the use of a tabletop IP with a game that had little to do with tabletop-like play, which left a sour taste in the mouth of many a fan of the Pathfinder franchise. It was also part of the first wave of crowdfunded MMOs as far as I can remember.
+Kuvajokeri you have good points, but being a part of the community it was after Ryan Dancey started censoring pvp advocates and really started to push consensual pvp as the core gameplay of player interaction and combat that the forums and all "faith" in the game died. Though you are right, its probably not the main reason, but I don't think it helped to alienate at least half of the already dedicated player base.
The original UO is being remade by two former Mythic devs who worked on the franchise. It's in Alpha currently and will be coming out on Steam beta in 3 months. All the old school sandbox mechanics of UO are implemented. Here's an in depth review. m.ruclips.net/video/X94okE0Ma80/видео.html
I was part of the beta and can tell you those glowingly positive comments were cherry picked off their closed forums - the game was a hot mess during beta and they were rushing it out the door in a state that was more akin to an alpha than a beta, much less a fully finished game. FFS, they launched the game with races that were incomplete - the Mahirim were missing their increased move speed mode and at the time they couldn't use mounts, as dropping to all fours was supposed to replace the need for mounts (like early versions of Tauren in WoW's beta). The game went through years of sketchy press and horribly managed development, then released before being anywhere near ready. On top of that, as mentioned, their order servers couldn't handle more than a handful of orders and crashed horribly. I had obsessed over the game when I first learned of it back in 2003, gave up around 2006 since it had been in perpetual development so long, then got super hyped again when the beta fired up and my clan got invites... The entire clan had quit within the first two months of launch. All that hype for so much disappointment.
Yeah I received one of the beta keys they gave Hyperion clans as well and I have no idea what they were talking about. There were tons of issues across the board and the game seemed far from launch ready.
House shivering beta player here, I loved it but the criticism is spot on. Just the feature set and physics driven pvp was so rich, there was no other game to go to.
I love hearing about MMO's. Everything about your episodes are great. I started playing MMO's back during Asherons Call. I've played most of the ones you have talked about so far. Still waiting on some of the other games I've played to be done by you. Thanks Nerdslayer for giving me something I never knew I needed.
This game had the WORST community forums i can remember Lol It was like the ninth circle of hell when you logged in there. People think WoW forums are bad, they have no idea.
Biggest issues with Darkfall: - People who like the PvP generally don't like the grind - probably 33%, who leave - People who like the PvE grind generally don't like the full loot - probably another 33%, who also leave - People who like full loot generally don't like the grind either - probably another 33% - The people who like the PvP, the full Loot, and don't mind the grind, are like 1% people. People who liked the FPS elements generally didn't like the grind. People who liked the RPG elements frequently weren't good at FPS. It's the result of a hybrid genre game. An arena shooter (Quake/Unreal style) based on Darkfall would probably sell a tonne of copies.
One of my most memorable gaming moments occurred within this game! I'm a bit late in seeing this, lol; but, great video. :) I never would have known about this game until a friend in high school told me about it, back in 2009-2010-ish, sometime after the NA launch. There didn't seem to be very much marketing for it going around, at the time, from what I remember; but, my friend seemed to imply that they preferred spreading by word of mouth anyway, for whatever reason. (Now, I know, it was due to lack of publisher, mismanagement, and silence from devs, lol.) Regardless, I'd had very little chance to play this game before it died. There was a free trial or something that allowed me to dip my toes into it, and IIRC its cost model was similar to that of WoW, in that you paid a typical $45/60-or-so to buy the game and then paid a monthly subscription to continue playing it. I didn't have much money at the time - being a high school student - nor a decent PC, so all I got to experience was the few hours a day I managed during the trial. (I also found it hard to justify the cost in general, when my friends and I already played WoW, etc., especially considering the clunky UI and the general lack of polish, overall.) But, those too-few hours of experience of the game have managed to stick with me throughout the years! Sadly, when I'd later returned with a little more money, time, and desire to play, it had already shuttered its doors and moved on to Unholy Wars. Having seen all the backlash about Unholy Wars at the time - both about how they turned promised updates into a separate, new game, and then just Aventurine being vile in general, I steered clear of it. Anyway, on to the memory. So, late one night, I was trying to work on one of the first few quests I'd had available to me, while learning the game. I was playing a wolf-dude and was out in the middle of some woods featuring the slightly rolling hills and large boulders and such that you see in some of the clips in this video. I was in a sort-of ditch, in the shadow of some large boulder, and I think I'd just killed something or ran across a grave, which I was looting. Suddenly, a bolt of some magic spell or something whizzed by and splashed down near me! Looking in the direction it came from for the source, I spotted someone charging up another spell standing atop the boulder looming over me, flanked by another player nocking an arrow to their bow, and a third drawing their weapon. Realizing that these folks figured it was wolf season, I quickly reacted, bolting in a random direction to avoid the next flurry of magic and arrows! New as I was, I knew that they could not chase me while attacking nearly as fast as I could move in a full-on sprint, and so I ran, bobbing and weaving, taking cover around and behind trees, and so on. After a few moments of this cat-and-mouse, and having gained a little distance, I glanced back and noticed that the third hunter had gotten on their mount and was catching back up to us very quickly. There was no way I could outrun them forever - especially, having already taken a hit or two from one of their volleys - so, I started to get desperate. For once, though, luck was on my side! Ahead, a person-height boulder interrupted my path. Jumping over the boulder and breaking line of sight, rather than continuing to run, I got as close as I could to the opposite side of the boulder, nestling myself into the slight concave curve of it, surrounded by small shrubbery and - more importantly - shadows. Then, I used the 'sit' emote, shrinking my large wolfy form down quite a bit, just perfectly managing to curl-up into the majority of the shadow, and hoped my gray fur blended in with the boulder well-enough - having also quickly removed my armor, after sitting. (For those who don't already know: in this game, players don't have names floating over their heads, nor icons on the minimap; so, stealth is truly a matter of just playing stealthily - naturally colored armor, moving slowly and quietly, blending in with cover and concealment, using the shadows, etc. New as I was, here I was, attempting to take advantage of just this!) Then, heart pumping, I waited... Given the way the camera worked, I could not get a good third-person view of things, with the boulder to my back; so, I sat there in first-person view, knowing I was a goner if they simply stopped and looked right at me. I knew they weren't far behind, either, because a bolt of arrow and/or magic had whizzed overhead as I'd vaulted the boulder and dropped behind it; and, I didn't have to wait long, as the mounted player ran right on by, around the side of the boulder, and continued on ahead, searching this way and that. Yesss - one had been duped! Another hunter then vaulted the boulder overhead, similarly to me, and landed just a few feet in front of me...and they, too, continued onward, probably assuming that their mounted friend had lost me further ahead. In that moment, I was the weirdest mix of giddy and frightened, but I daren't move or celebrate just yet, as, atop the boulder, I could hear the third player - the sorcerer, probably - above and behind me, pacing back and forth. In my stilled mind, like a deer in headlights, I just KNEW that, any second, he was going to look down and see me, or that the others - who were searching left and right, now, suspecting that I was hiding somewhere - would regroup right there and eventually notice the oddly-shaped rock in the shadows... But, after minutes that felt like an eternity, the third player finally leapt from the boulder and continued onward, linking back up in the search with his comrades. Letting out a huge sigh of relief, I waited until all three were looking away before standing up and creeping back the way we came, gaining enough distance from them to settle down, collect myself, and log off. (IIRC there was a log-off timer and you couldn't combat-log, in this game, so I couldn't just do that, earlier.) Somehow, some way, I'd managed to fool three player-killers and give them the slip in one of the oldest-school, most cartoonish ways - and got away with it! I vividly remember this scenario as it played out, to this day, and it'll probably always stick with me. It's a shame that I got to spend so little time with Darkfall; but, it was really, probably, for the best, seeing how things eventually transpired. Hope someone enjoys my silly little story!
It's not the Open PvP that killed the game, but more the hardcores. They're not bad themselves but building a game for the hardcore players will eventually reduce it to just that part of the community. You end up with a massive skill gap and people will give up. Eventually, well what happened to Darkfall happens. I remember hearing about the game, being interested until I looked closer, because I heard about it after it was already out. A game like that is just very hard to do, and I have no idea how a team could pull it off myself.
I know right? Only the hardcore fanbase would like this game. Which kinda like games like APB can florish in that game while new people will get brushed aside
The mob spawns were unprotected and noobs had little chance of escaping from 3-4 high level pkers, locked dungeons for groups or some kind of early warning system that worked might of helped. But then the mobs in the game were terrible, pve wasn't fun.
People love full looting, perma death and all that stuff... but only when they are not the ones getting looted and ganked. So likely u will run out of rabbits sooner rather than later. Really the whole premise for this type of game is flawed.
To put into perspective how relevant Darkfall Online was,I'm Greek and I live pretty close to the Aventurine building and I learned that they are a game company just now.
@@ryuno2097 Holy shit the necroposting! It was covered on some of the biggest RUclips channels in Greece and it got its own spot at Gameathlon, a Greek gaming convention. Thing is, the building always looked like it was operated by a skeleton crew with a mostly empty parking lot. Basically Darkfall got white hot over here for a while and then fizzled out fast.
Solid stuff. Amusingly enough UO had an era of brokenly strong wizards or halberd in plate. While I don't like how UO solved those issues in the long run they at least recognized the problem. Darkfall had and has potential.
I remember following this game on the forums for years, joining the dwarf clan led by surly, and planned on being a dwarf mage. When beta started, the game was not what I expected. I still remember that community though, one of the most invested forums I was ever involved in for a game where the anticipation was more exciting than the result.
I was excited for Darkfall when it first came out and played it at launch, only for a week though. The game was not pretty and it took a lot of work to get anything done. The world was practically empty, no mobs or anything to find. The last time i logged on i spent a few hours running around the world exploring. There was nothing outside the starting area, no mobs, npc or anything, just ground and trees. I decided that i'd run to another starting area, just to see what it was like. So i arrived at one of the other starting areas and found that it was under attack by a few players. I figured i'd try to help the starting players and engaged the attackers, i did not fare well and had to run. So i ran to the starting area to hide behind the walls near the tower (shoots ganking players), but when i got there, the low level players didn't much care that i was there to help. They just killed me and took my stuff, i spawned back in my own starting area, closed down the game and never looked back.
It's really amazing what Adventurine did with Darkfall esp considering all the competition at the time, their small group, and making for such a small dedicated niche of the online world. They achieved what studios 100x their size only talked about and failed completely at, and they did it with much smaller budget and kept it going for quite a long time.
One thing i had a problem with Darkfall... is it looks brown all the time. Grey and brown.... ho hum. Could have been a good game. Hey nerdSlayer... maybe something interesting to do is to do a return to some of these games that are still going. Thanks love your work.
Thanks for making this video. Brought back a lot of memories (good and bad). I remember participating in one of the (or perhaps the) first sieges. A member of the BKB guild, we got sieged by the Goonsquad alliance, got rolled over pretty hard and lost our city (I can't remember it's name, but you could literally run around the walls by going over a hill adjacent to it). It had several platueues, one in the center, with an elevator that went up. Was a nice city if it wasn't so easy to get into. I remember sitting with hundreds of other players as legions of goons and goon alliance members rushed us. Also remember having the city Sunstone in the northwest during the beta. One of my best memories is me and my brothers stalking in the cliffs abovr a group that was farming. They didn't see us for some time, and killed them all after they got low and stealed the loot. We were new and didn't get much, but very fun and unique experience. Another time I remember was when our guild farmed these pirates to get a raft (which we got, and sailed back home with). I still have the screenshot of that somewhere after ten years and four different computers... I haven't finished watching, but im halfway through and so far you didn't mention the 2008 economic crash. The move to Greece probably became a problem. Greece suffered the worst of any of the European countries during the crash, they still have not recovered from it to this day. Obviously that had nothing to do with all the problems prior to the crash, but they likely suffered internal problems after it, with funding, staffing, rent, payroll, etc. I remember them distinctly having to close down for some time due to riots that were happening outside their studio. I did not play it for too long after we lost our city. We ended up joining the goons alliance, and I lost interest after seeing the writing on the wall. I and many others were seeing what we were warning about in the beta: without a skill cap, the people with absolutely no life would dominate. With macroing and the massive grind for every ability, I couldn't keep up cause I didn't want to macro. If the game had a skill cap, I have no doubt the game would've survived and done a lot better than it did. I didnt even know about bunny hopping in this video, and although I love movement mechanics like it in FPS games, it has no place in an MMO, especially one in which magic is already overpowered. After quitting I still spent time in Forumfall pretty actively for some years. I wanna say up till 2011, but mostly in Off Topic (which was even more toxic than on topic). I also do remember arguing a lot with people about the lack of a cap. Then again, I was mostly arguing with the hardcore folks who didn't care if it didn't have a cap because they'd have advantages without it. I had college at the time and a full-time job now, as well as other hobbies. A skill cap makes it possible for people like me to play MMOs, gear and resource grinds were enough. By the way, if anyone wants something like Darkfall, check out New World. Has similar concepts.
Great video! I really miss Darkfall. I never considered myself a PvP Player, I actually disliked most concepts of competitive multiplayer, and in games like WoW I shunned it as much as I could. I hated this concept of arbitrary resets and how PvP had zero impact on the game world, there was no lasting legacy for victory. Coupled with my love for skill-based RPGs like The Elder Scrolls I instantly got drawn to Darkfall and despite not being very competitive minded, I had an absolute blast. I loved how everything in the game had consequence, how if your clan took over a city or hamlet, it was yours until someone else took it from you. I also loved the whole idea of people banding together to create something. I started out in run-of-the-mill clans, before joining one of the biggest clans on the NA Server at the time (Reincarnation) and still remember the day that clan alliance lost their entire island and got curbstomped (I'm not even mad bro). The grind was the biggest problem I had with the game, and I solved it (for myself at least) by focusing entirely on ships and becoming pirates. You didn't need stats or skills to use a cannon, you just aim and shoot. So I started one of the few exclusive pirate clans in Darkfall (Marque and Reprisal, later The Jolly Rogers) and while it was far from glorious, we still had a lot of fun sailing from chaos city to chaos city, farming mobs, wood, iron, and stone to build ships, capturing coastal village points, and testing our mettle against other seabound vessels (we sucked). I was sad to see the game go, and while I briefly tried out Unholy Wars I found it very alienating, nothing seemed better, it just seemed different. I am excited by the prospect of New Dawn and Rise of Agon but at this time I really want to give each some time to breathe and hopefully kick off before investing myself into the game again. I truly hope Darkfall will live on, and at the very least, show other developers there's a potential market for games like this if you're willing to go full hardcore.
When the devs decided to split the server population in favor of 2 servers (1 na and 1 europe) the game started to decline and never was able to sustain itself. A huge world with little population in a world that was suppose to be about PVP and conquest doesnt really work with low population.
Great video nerdslayer that was a very good history that probably enlightened a lot of people of the game's past. Going through all these highs and lows myself as a player from NA launch till the early unholy wars beta I remember the heartache :).
Tell me... would you not agree with me that unholy wars was trying to make Darkfall for carebears? Would you not agree they could have an infiltrator from the main stream pushing hard to make the game go in this direction?
I really enjoy playing these videos in the background while I do work on my computer, thanks so much for making these, I will always be intrigued by MMOs
I still miss the forum wars as much as the game itself lol, I was a “Bishop” of Kirdain (one of the “duchies” of Hyperion) and that was a very fun experience. It’s a shame the game was so broken and limited at launch... I can’t speak for other guilds, but I saw that most of the guilds within Hyperion had enormous player drop off after a couple weeks when it became clear there wasn’t much to do and that territory ownership was more of a burden and hassle than anything. It was fun while it lasted though.
Old Darkfall player here. I subbed and used your ref. And put nerdSlayer in the box where it asks how I found them. I loved all your death of a game videos so far and this one is especially cool since Darkfall managed to create such lasting memories for me. Hopefully you can keep doing these for another 10 years so I can see your Death of a Game video about WoW.
YOU BROUGHT BACK SO MANY BITTERSWEET MEMORIES. I waited years for this to release to only be substantially upset with how the NA launch went. I remember I couldn't leave the city without getting ganked so I pretty much rage quit considering it was hard enough to get the armor and skills that I had.
So nice to hear Asheron's Call getting a reference. Now you just need to bring up Shadowbane and Anarchy Online for all of my early MMO's to be represented ;).
Forumfall... Oh my, that was good part of my teens all the way up into early adulthood. It was a shitfest honestly, but it was our shitfest. The game? Wish it never happend.
I remember trying to free trial of the original game once. There were people right outside the starter area ganking noobs. There was literally no way a new player could have gotten into the game since other players were actively preventing you from doing anything.
Really digging the increased quality here, both the new mic and the editing are doing a damn fine job. Hats off to your editor, it's nicely cut and portrayed without being too distracting. Looking forward to new content!
I remember finding this MMO by chance years ago when I was looking for a new MMO to play as a WoW PvP player. I didn't know it had so much history, I also really like the graphics for some reason, they are different but cool and stylish, they also feel nostalgic, even tho I've never played the game. It's such a shame that such an unique game died because of so much missmanagement, even tho it's still alive thanks to the reboots it's probably not the same and it's not what it could have been if it were to be managed well from the very beggining. Great video.
I loved Darkfall! Former member of eXile Corp, of the Coalition of the Chilling. Best moment in gaming was the CotC vs Hyperion Kingdom. Holy shit was that epic. After hyperion fell, the rise of The Mercs and Afghan that tore apart Coalition of the Chilling... so epic. For a time after the disintigration of CotC, we managed to buy a city on Rubayat (something like that), we spent about a 2 months there, building up forces, creating a new alliance and getting ready to invade the mainland again. But then summer holidays hit, all leadership went on vacation and the GL promoted someone he trusted... Only for his to sell all our cities to the enemy, kicking everyone from the guild before hand. As a result, everyone got scattered with only their own bank for things. Basically it made everyone quit or find a new guild. It was sad for it to end that way, but it was also a perfect end in a way to a awesome adventure that i will never forget. DarkFall as a game; 6/10 as an experience: 10/10.
You should do a video on Firefall. Super long development, the devs constantly changing their minds and entirely redoing systems repeatedly (there were 2 different crafting/progression systems during the time I spent in beta, and then they redid it again after the game launched).
I have been able to repress the name Tasos from my mind for years. You have re-opened this phase of my life, the name I hated so! Great video though keep it up duder
It can work, it just requires a completed game lol The truth is it wasn’t the end of the world to lose gear and such in that game, but unlike their early promise that a skilled new player could compete with a veteran, their skill system (especially magic) left an insurmountable gulf between the two.
@@ValensBellator for real, i quit and came back around 3 times after losing hope from the character stats and skill gap. it took forever to level up skills and stats, also you had to glitch mobs and make afk macros to even compete.
Discovered your channel only recently, but I love your content. I am still stuckon playing oldies, and your videos tickle my nostalgia. That said, I wanted to ask you if you would be willing to do a piece on Clive Barker's Undying. It is among the "best games nooone played", but it remains one of my favorite games of all time, and ONLY fps I can honestly say I love.
Okay man. You're killing it. This series is fantastic. I am so obsessed with the concept of the mmo. This is a perfect series for me. Can't wait until someone really nails it. I feel a true mmo breakthrough is coming. So many people passionately care about trying to find the perfect formula.
I'm following you since your Death of a Game: Star Wars Galaxies video. But I can't get it enough, literally. Can you please make videos and post them more frequently? I can't find this quailty on youtube. Please don't stop making Death of a Game series.
It is a failed game that was mismanaged and the Devs could never deliver on what they promised their community, as a long time player I would like to see it done justice by this series.
It ain't dead yet, population seems to be pretty stable. And they just had the big modular house update. population is pretty healthy for these kind of games.
Mortal Online GM's are liars and scumbags. That entire game i played from day 1 and the GM and dev team managed everything horribly and they did not have backups. Which means when people duped and shit went crazy there would be no way to rollback... the gms did stuff manually. Also the GM's gave players large amount of items and some people got treated very differently in game as per relations with the GM team. Also their website is not secure for credit card or personal information and players in the game were confirmed to have had access to GM accounts in game and on the website which gave the ability to spawn items and change almost anything. They banned players without reason and failed to ban hackers and dupers. The entire game was a shit show from day 1.
Developer membership within The Mercs, who prior to Darkfall were widely viewed as a bunch of washed up C- list pvpers, didn't help matters when The Mercs were all able to use skill gain exploits upon launch that were then patched out without a reversion leading to a massive skill gulf that led most serious PvP guilds to bail en masse. Virtually everyone else believed The Mercs were intentionally being favored to the point that exploits were intentionally left in and that they were even notified of the exploits by developers playing with the guild.
25:45 the sign of a pathological liar, he didnt TECHNICALLY lie, because it wasnt called Darkfall 2: Unholy Wars. He could use the excuse of it being an "off-shoot" branch game. Lol ive seen that kinda excuse to lie so many times. F that.
Hey I know you mostly just do MMO's, but you should really check out WarZ (Zombie survival game) It had a terrible failing story and the guy running it was a real con artist and shithead. Enjoyed this epidsode. I stayed away from Darkfall after I heard too many bad things about it and the original graphics were too hard for me to look past, but sounds like you had a good bit of fun in the first one at least!
Hmmm...Warz was never big enough to follow suit of these vids. If it was it didn't make it but a few wks with any real popularity. Just a scam game which isn't exactly the types he is talking about here.
I played so many MMOs in my life and I’m sad to say I missed this one. Right up my alley of the games I loved to play. Can only imagine how fun the PvP was.
I have watched this video multiple times and i have been done some deeper research about Aventurin and where they moved afterwards and what happened behind the scene meanwhile the Darkfall game was running and going.I am from Greece and i have to say that the game did absolutely nothing to grab local players,when at the time of launching of Darkfall the second most popular game in Greece was WoW.Moreover on some of the many interviews Tasos did in Greek media he strongly emphasised on how he is trying to pull out a game with a base in Greece and in general how he is trying to prove that Greek people can enter the gaming industry if done right.Both from media and his statements it was clear that this game was more than a game a passion project done by a group of people wanting to prove themselves.As a passion project i started understanding his point of view when giving the statements you mention throughout the video,it wasn't just a job that wasn't succeeding but a further dream,a dream that had been put a lot of effort and personal dedication on. The location of the base of Aventurin was a problem on its self,when going through their page and multiple forums i came across many threads stating that the team of Aventurin needed extra hands but because of the environment and nature of the team those who were looking for a place in the team had to get to Greece(this is still stated on their page TODAY,they are clearing out that anyone willing to work with the will have to get here in Greece to do so) and there was no much luck on finding professionals.There was also a thread asking for new programmers from Greek universities knowing game programming,but none was shown to know the demanded engines since Greece wasn't really experienced with games before. Darkfall was a victim of its creators' high expectations,they wanted it to succeed but under the term to succeed as a Greek title and with a specified team image,which was impossible to ever work as such and denial brought the fall of the team,they simply overdone themselves for trying to accomplish something impossible.
I love your videos. Binging them while doing staff for my masters, while cooking, or just resting. Hopefully you cover Gunbound, i loved that game back in high school.
I was one of the bastards that prayed for the success of DFO since it was first mentioned. I was one of the AC Darktide and Shadowbane crews and it looked like it was going to be the game that brought it all together. Apparently I was such a forum fly through all of the wait I got to be a forum mod. Mainly "my beloved off topic" and the newbie forum. I am glad I stumbled over your channel! I will have to checked out the two offshoots you mentioned. TFK!
Two points. 1) You probably should have talked more about the Eurogamer review, and the subsequent re-review, as the developers and the forum went retarded over that initial review. It was a huge deal because finally the reality that the game was total garbage at release hit the devs. It was hilarious how they lost their shit when Eurogamer gave them a 2/10, then a 4/10. 2) To me, the final part of your review about the delusions the community has is the prime evidence why MMO's that are PVP-specific *are* doomed to fail. They attract tryhards and tryhards will make the game unplayable for casuals. Since the ratio of casuals to tryhards is 9/1, eventually your MMO will be left with a tenth of its original playerbase. That might work for a multiplayer shooter, but not for a genre whose whole premise is "look at all these other players in this giant world I can interact with."
Your last point is so true. I was one of the original beta signups and waited for the game for years! Then it came out and you couldn't even level basic skills in a newbie area or sell your junk without getting ganked and looted. I didn't start when the game launched, but probably 6-8mo after. Exploring was impossible, you couldn't get far enough out of the city to actually learn the game or learn how to stay alive, because there was no way to slowly get used to it. I'm a big fan of PVP games, but Darkfall was just miserable.
I hear ya. You would have had to of been their at very beginning to play the full experience. It was amazing. After a few months all the people who macroed magic casting day and night became overly powered and thus the game died.
I've noticed that a lot of these PvP-focused MMOs end up either dead or in life support not long after their release. It seems impossible to make a game where you're encouraged to fight other players and take their stuff without the veteran playerbase eventually forming the dreaded elitist circlejerk that ruins the game for everyone and pretty much guarantees the game's inevitable demise. I understand the reasoning behind wanting a game like this to remain "hardcore" and unforgiving, and being resistant to changes to make the game more accessible (or less "hardcore") and actively giving new and less dedicated players a hard time, but at the end of the day this is still an MMO we're talking about; a type of game that requires an active and healthy playerbase to remain relevant. It's hard to maintain a game like this running when the community itself is contributing to its demise with their shitty attitudes.
PvP heavy mmo's always sit in a weird spot, where they either force the people that just want to pvp to slog through a huge pve grind fest, or they just open the floodgates and force the pve'ers to always watch their backs for fear some guy comes running out of the bushes sword in hand, which inevitably leads to the pve'ers leaving the game and the pvp'ers running out of targets to hunt. surely there is a way to balance the two or at the very least allow people a way out of the pvp asside from quitting the game.
I was following that game from late 2001 early 2002 all the way through the beta, launch, and reboot. It was a fun game but never really came together.
The new editing definitely helps! One minor suggestion I have is for the lower resolution video for content that is more difficult to find HD recordings of, it may be a good idea to reduce the image size into more of a letterbox view/something with borders and see how that looks. In a window its not as noticeable but the low resolution portions clash with the other sharp image overlays and better quality rips when viewing in fullscreen. Its very possible this may be a problem unique to someone talking about content such as this due to the nature of available recordings being older at times.
To this day I feel like the freedom afforded to players was astounding and there's been nothing else like it. Destructible environments, buildable bases, huge sieges with siege machines and ships? What other game has offered anything close to that? Probably just EVE online but that game's strength and weakness is the setting and gameplay. The space setting affords those capabilities while at the same time preventing a different type of action gameplay that people may want, which Darkfall did ultimately offer. A shame it never worked out, I only played this game for 2-3 months back in the day but it's still stuck to my mind as a highlight of my gaming experiences. A very good video, and given the fact that it's a bit old, it kinda blows my mind that right now the game is available to be played.
Thanks for the video, brought back memories. Never had the opportunity to take advantage of what DF had to offer because I didn't have the drive to deeply commit, which is a requirement in these pretty hardcore games, but I can relate to the great feeling of every trip being an adventure where you were really at risk of losing something, it made the world feel organic and exciting. When you are done with the mmo analyses do you intend to spend time on the kinds of "meta" paradigms that emerged and competed between each other within mmos? It's interesting that you seemed pretty invested in Darkfall, this school of sandbox mmo design is now pretty much dead and buried but I'd venture to say it reemerged through the "survival" genre (Dust etc) where there seems to be a revitalized appetite for open ended experiences (tho you could argue this started with minecraft and is now on a downwards slope also). There's room for improvement on the structure of your videos I believe, the linear exploration of the timeline is fine but you might want to try having less of a compartmentalized approach for the analysis and tailor it to the most salient elements you want to address with any specific game, IMO!
Despite it's shortcomings, Darkfall was one of the most unique and enjoyable experiences I've had with online gaming. I didn't even get very far, but the memories of what I did do still stand out.
Darkfall dead?? lol it will be back they will resell the same broken game a 5th time guaranteed. the next game has to be everrquest next before all the information about how SOE ripped everyone off dissapears from the internet
Everquest next was never more than an engine. They didn't know how to make a game out of it. Everything that shows gameplay are scripted content. The developers totally failed here, giving us empty promises. Lets see how Pantheon rise of the fallen turns out, since it's made by many of the same key people.
Very nice video and true to how many of us have percived the history of Darkfall. I did find darkfall in 2009 and start playing just after the blood wall was removed. Up until shutdown i spent avery weekend in Agon... and i miss it so much. just like most others i did not find Unholy Wars to live up to thefeeling in Darkfall. Must say it was a thrilling and awesum experience to log in to Rise Of Agon at launch. :) Sorry to say it i have not played much Rise of Agon after launch due to lack of time.
You're easily the best MMORPG content creator. Most of the popular ones shrug off games like this and say they were doomed to fail because of the concept, it's so refreshing to hear from someone who understands the fun in a risky sandbox environment and how they're some of the most unique experiences ever. Also you REALLY covered everything, I was afraid you wouldn't mention magefall, as it was the reason I quit. Not being able to play as a melee character without having to first learn a multitude of spells I had no interest in was really frustrating, when I played all the good players had the exact same loadouts and classes and it made the game feel like a poor mans Quake in the later days rather then a battle going on in a fantasy world. Glad I subbed to you.
Holy crap... I had never heard of Darkfall Online, but when you mentioned the time when Eurogamer gave a terrible score to DFO after only playing the game for two hours, I remembered reading about that!
I loved this game... After battling as a noob verses the rainbow ninjas, to our clan duping gold and grinding to be as powerful. Then to only join the remnants with the beginning of the EU transfer to NA. The power gap was massive and we steamrolled almost every clan... Was such a fun game to play.
I was there at the very beginning before the game was released. We were speculating about the game features, hoping and suggesting some good game mechanics. We ended up getting an empty, grind heavy sandbox with Quake combat. Meh. Also spin to win combat. It was hilarious how broken this part of the game was.
do you remember samdogs hilarious fictional posts about getting to play the closed beta, and all the really awesome features he talked about which had nothing to do with the darkfall that released?
I was a young guy when I first heard of this game and as a mud pvper I was so looking forward to it. Whelp I'm almost 50 now and my best pvp mmo experience was still on a mud.
Well said NerdSlayer. I was there in 2009 and imo people afk boting magic ruined the game. It made having to aim with the bow pointless because with high level magic you could simply aim at the ground near their feet to do full damage. That's what ruined the game for me and I quit after 6 months. I never macroed and never will. That said, I hope that darkfall is a success.
Darkfall New Dawn launches in less than a week. Check out the website to see changes, many of the problems I outlined are seeming to be remedied (well not the conversation of content/population YET). This might be our last chance to make this game work guys.
darkfallnewdawn.com/
Will you be playing DnD?
Yes. I am already playing.
nerdSlayer Cool 👍 What clan? I am in Lux Arcana.
Char name?
Ducecannon Hytek Supremacy
I've actually met the Greek Darkfall guys here in Greece, during a Greek Game Developers' conference. The producer, Tasos, seemed quite arrogant, claiming their game was state of the art and had millions of players, when it looked severely outdated even in 2008...
Still better that anthem
@@trashsombra2793 nah it was good
I've also met him a couple of times through my line of work. I wasn't aware that he was a game developer but almost immediately I could tell that the guy was full of shit. I couldn't take him seriously.
It was state of the art in 2008…
@@SonniTheDog i feel bad for ppl who never played it. ahead of its time, nothing like it still to this day.
I have legit never heard of this game before. This is fascinating, thanks for digging in.
@roxoto thank you, internet stranger.
I saw a video talking about the developers and the community attacking euro gamer a while back ago from another youtuber
I never got to play it when I was younger but I craved it
@@VintageNarwhal it was k
You guys missed out.. it was crazy the first year and then just went downhill. The crazier part is no one has created a game similar to this yet.
I had a darkfall fan site that sold subscriptions, technically profitable, but not worth the time.
Definitely the brittle nature of it all is what made it so exciting. I mostly played as a solo player, living in constant fear of larger PK kill squads rampaging across the land, fueled by their exploity-guild infrastructure. The David-vs-Goliath analogy perfectly described my relationship with the game. There were lots of low-value targets a small band of players could assault. No guild could be everywhere, and in the those tiny dark crevices of Agon, small-scale combat and serial-killing was alive and well, silhouetted against the server-shattering wars that made the headlines. Sadly, it did feel like a big empty world ruled by cheaters. Solo players, "sheep like me" if you will, had to work twice as hard to get mediocre equipment, only to lose it to somebody who clearly didn't even need it.
So many great memories. I remember one time I was solo-pking in the mahirim lands when a band of 3 mounted guys attacked me. I led them on a chase that stretched all the way back to the safety of the Dwarven capital. It was the most intense experience I have ever had in a videogame. Being a hair's breadth from losing all my gear for over 30 minutes of constant running past spawns and through hostile player towns. In the end, they pushed their mounts so hard to keep up with me that two of their mounts died, and in a crazy maneuver I managed to steal the last guy's mount and escape, using some random dude in the world who was mining in the wrong place at the wrong time as a distraction. My hands were cold, sweaty, shaking, and my heart was going a mile a minute. Immensely satisfying.
RIP Darkfall.
Hahaha xD Wow dude, that's badass! Have you tried Darkfall New Dawn?
Had a ton of fun for a short stretch with Hyperion, but yeah, there were just a lot of problems and the player base died so quickly
Had many similar experiences in this game myself. SO visceral was the feeling, not like any game I've ever played, before or since.
Sounds like the high stakes PVP of EVE Online.
Except that game's UI has all the thrills of staring at an air traffic control screen. :\
So basically you lived in the Balkans
Sorry for the typo, fell asleep at the wheel boys. But hopefully everyone enjoys the upgrade in quality. Thank our new editor Tom Davies for that. He's the man, and we will have more like this coming. Me trying out an editor is why I took so long to make this specific one. Thanks for the patience and hopefully it was worth.
Thanks man I love these death of a game videos and glad you put a lot of time into this one!
Darkfall is back - Look up Darkfall New Dawn and Darkfall Rise of Agon - also Darkfall Unholy Wars has been bought up as well. :)
Lol watch the video first
I think the new look is good and stand outs. It took a good ideal and step it up a bit.
He did a great job!
I know the reason I quit was because certain groups (TM, LOD, etc) got caught cheating over and over and over but never even got a slap on the wrist because they had connections to AV. Meanwhile dudes in my guild who pushed TM out of certain bugged spawns got the hammer for doing the same thing to try to catch up.
I have heard some concerns over the New Dawn portion of my video, just so people know. I chose to barely go into the details between the game, and the philosophies of both versions of the game.
If you want to have a better understanding of both, please just go to either games websites and read their road-maps.
A good start for New Dawn would be here.
darkfallnewdawn.com/2016-06-21-what-is-new-in-new-dawn/
And for ROA check this one out
www.darkfallriseofagon.com/game/development/early-access-road-map-2017/
no worries, might tend a bit in RoA's direction but your presentation is still balanced (I play DND).
the video is a pretty nice watch all in all:)
Can you please do death of a game of Pathfinder Online? it was basically going to be the same as Darkfall and they actually got pretty far with development but Ryan Dancey starting hating on pvp and wanting the game to go in a pve/consensual combat direction which ruined the fanbase and made their forums toxic as people were ripped off from them paying/preorder for a pvp freedom game but getting pve instead after they had paid $40-1000 or more for it.
Pathfinder Online would be interesting to hear about, yeah, although I don't quite agree with your analysis on it's death being due to "Ryan Dancey beginning to dislike PVP at some point in time." There's a lot to go about in there, like the use of a tabletop IP with a game that had little to do with tabletop-like play, which left a sour taste in the mouth of many a fan of the Pathfinder franchise. It was also part of the first wave of crowdfunded MMOs as far as I can remember.
+Kuvajokeri you have good points, but being a part of the community it was after Ryan Dancey started censoring pvp advocates and really started to push consensual pvp as the core gameplay of player interaction and combat that the forums and all "faith" in the game died. Though you are right, its probably not the main reason, but I don't think it helped to alienate at least half of the already dedicated player base.
The original UO is being remade by two former Mythic devs who worked on the franchise. It's in Alpha currently and will be coming out on Steam beta in 3 months. All the old school sandbox mechanics of UO are implemented. Here's an in depth review. m.ruclips.net/video/X94okE0Ma80/видео.html
I was part of the beta and can tell you those glowingly positive comments were cherry picked off their closed forums - the game was a hot mess during beta and they were rushing it out the door in a state that was more akin to an alpha than a beta, much less a fully finished game. FFS, they launched the game with races that were incomplete - the Mahirim were missing their increased move speed mode and at the time they couldn't use mounts, as dropping to all fours was supposed to replace the need for mounts (like early versions of Tauren in WoW's beta).
The game went through years of sketchy press and horribly managed development, then released before being anywhere near ready. On top of that, as mentioned, their order servers couldn't handle more than a handful of orders and crashed horribly. I had obsessed over the game when I first learned of it back in 2003, gave up around 2006 since it had been in perpetual development so long, then got super hyped again when the beta fired up and my clan got invites... The entire clan had quit within the first two months of launch. All that hype for so much disappointment.
Yeah I received one of the beta keys they gave Hyperion clans as well and I have no idea what they were talking about. There were tons of issues across the board and the game seemed far from launch ready.
House shivering beta player here, I loved it but the criticism is spot on. Just the feature set and physics driven pvp was so rich, there was no other game to go to.
I love hearing about MMO's. Everything about your episodes are great. I started playing MMO's back during Asherons Call. I've played most of the ones you have talked about so far. Still waiting on some of the other games I've played to be done by you. Thanks Nerdslayer for giving me something I never knew I needed.
Love this series! Wonderful high quality content! One of my most recommended RUclips Channels!
This game had the WORST community forums i can remember Lol
It was like the ninth circle of hell when you logged in there.
People think WoW forums are bad, they have no idea.
Ahh yea you mean ForumFall. Lmao i knew so many people who all they did was talk shit on that lol.
Biggest issues with Darkfall:
- People who like the PvP generally don't like the grind - probably 33%, who leave
- People who like the PvE grind generally don't like the full loot - probably another 33%, who also leave
- People who like full loot generally don't like the grind either - probably another 33%
- The people who like the PvP, the full Loot, and don't mind the grind, are like 1% people.
People who liked the FPS elements generally didn't like the grind. People who liked the RPG elements frequently weren't good at FPS.
It's the result of a hybrid genre game.
An arena shooter (Quake/Unreal style) based on Darkfall would probably sell a tonne of copies.
One of my most memorable gaming moments occurred within this game! I'm a bit late in seeing this, lol; but, great video. :)
I never would have known about this game until a friend in high school told me about it, back in 2009-2010-ish, sometime after the NA launch. There didn't seem to be very much marketing for it going around, at the time, from what I remember; but, my friend seemed to imply that they preferred spreading by word of mouth anyway, for whatever reason. (Now, I know, it was due to lack of publisher, mismanagement, and silence from devs, lol.) Regardless, I'd had very little chance to play this game before it died. There was a free trial or something that allowed me to dip my toes into it, and IIRC its cost model was similar to that of WoW, in that you paid a typical $45/60-or-so to buy the game and then paid a monthly subscription to continue playing it. I didn't have much money at the time - being a high school student - nor a decent PC, so all I got to experience was the few hours a day I managed during the trial. (I also found it hard to justify the cost in general, when my friends and I already played WoW, etc., especially considering the clunky UI and the general lack of polish, overall.) But, those too-few hours of experience of the game have managed to stick with me throughout the years! Sadly, when I'd later returned with a little more money, time, and desire to play, it had already shuttered its doors and moved on to Unholy Wars. Having seen all the backlash about Unholy Wars at the time - both about how they turned promised updates into a separate, new game, and then just Aventurine being vile in general, I steered clear of it.
Anyway, on to the memory. So, late one night, I was trying to work on one of the first few quests I'd had available to me, while learning the game. I was playing a wolf-dude and was out in the middle of some woods featuring the slightly rolling hills and large boulders and such that you see in some of the clips in this video. I was in a sort-of ditch, in the shadow of some large boulder, and I think I'd just killed something or ran across a grave, which I was looting. Suddenly, a bolt of some magic spell or something whizzed by and splashed down near me! Looking in the direction it came from for the source, I spotted someone charging up another spell standing atop the boulder looming over me, flanked by another player nocking an arrow to their bow, and a third drawing their weapon.
Realizing that these folks figured it was wolf season, I quickly reacted, bolting in a random direction to avoid the next flurry of magic and arrows! New as I was, I knew that they could not chase me while attacking nearly as fast as I could move in a full-on sprint, and so I ran, bobbing and weaving, taking cover around and behind trees, and so on. After a few moments of this cat-and-mouse, and having gained a little distance, I glanced back and noticed that the third hunter had gotten on their mount and was catching back up to us very quickly. There was no way I could outrun them forever - especially, having already taken a hit or two from one of their volleys - so, I started to get desperate.
For once, though, luck was on my side! Ahead, a person-height boulder interrupted my path. Jumping over the boulder and breaking line of sight, rather than continuing to run, I got as close as I could to the opposite side of the boulder, nestling myself into the slight concave curve of it, surrounded by small shrubbery and - more importantly - shadows. Then, I used the 'sit' emote, shrinking my large wolfy form down quite a bit, just perfectly managing to curl-up into the majority of the shadow, and hoped my gray fur blended in with the boulder well-enough - having also quickly removed my armor, after sitting. (For those who don't already know: in this game, players don't have names floating over their heads, nor icons on the minimap; so, stealth is truly a matter of just playing stealthily - naturally colored armor, moving slowly and quietly, blending in with cover and concealment, using the shadows, etc. New as I was, here I was, attempting to take advantage of just this!)
Then, heart pumping, I waited...
Given the way the camera worked, I could not get a good third-person view of things, with the boulder to my back; so, I sat there in first-person view, knowing I was a goner if they simply stopped and looked right at me. I knew they weren't far behind, either, because a bolt of arrow and/or magic had whizzed overhead as I'd vaulted the boulder and dropped behind it; and, I didn't have to wait long, as the mounted player ran right on by, around the side of the boulder, and continued on ahead, searching this way and that. Yesss - one had been duped! Another hunter then vaulted the boulder overhead, similarly to me, and landed just a few feet in front of me...and they, too, continued onward, probably assuming that their mounted friend had lost me further ahead. In that moment, I was the weirdest mix of giddy and frightened, but I daren't move or celebrate just yet, as, atop the boulder, I could hear the third player - the sorcerer, probably - above and behind me, pacing back and forth. In my stilled mind, like a deer in headlights, I just KNEW that, any second, he was going to look down and see me, or that the others - who were searching left and right, now, suspecting that I was hiding somewhere - would regroup right there and eventually notice the oddly-shaped rock in the shadows...
But, after minutes that felt like an eternity, the third player finally leapt from the boulder and continued onward, linking back up in the search with his comrades. Letting out a huge sigh of relief, I waited until all three were looking away before standing up and creeping back the way we came, gaining enough distance from them to settle down, collect myself, and log off. (IIRC there was a log-off timer and you couldn't combat-log, in this game, so I couldn't just do that, earlier.)
Somehow, some way, I'd managed to fool three player-killers and give them the slip in one of the oldest-school, most cartoonish ways - and got away with it! I vividly remember this scenario as it played out, to this day, and it'll probably always stick with me. It's a shame that I got to spend so little time with Darkfall; but, it was really, probably, for the best, seeing how things eventually transpired. Hope someone enjoys my silly little story!
It's not the Open PvP that killed the game, but more the hardcores. They're not bad themselves but building a game for the hardcore players will eventually reduce it to just that part of the community. You end up with a massive skill gap and people will give up. Eventually, well what happened to Darkfall happens. I remember hearing about the game, being interested until I looked closer, because I heard about it after it was already out. A game like that is just very hard to do, and I have no idea how a team could pull it off myself.
I know right? Only the hardcore fanbase would like this game. Which kinda like games like APB can florish in that game while new people will get brushed aside
NO, what happened is that Darkfall doesn't have skill cap or camouflage skills... Is a predator's game without the main skill for depredation.
So basically, a neocon model of "Git Gud" or "Git Purged". :)
The mob spawns were unprotected and noobs had little chance of escaping from 3-4 high level pkers, locked dungeons for groups or some kind of early warning system that worked might of helped.
But then the mobs in the game were terrible, pve wasn't fun.
People love full looting, perma death and all that stuff... but only when they are not the ones getting looted and ganked. So likely u will run out of rabbits sooner rather than later. Really the whole premise for this type of game is flawed.
To put into perspective how relevant Darkfall Online was,I'm Greek and I live pretty close to the Aventurine building and I learned that they are a game company just now.
Just shows you're not much of a gamer. Surely not with MMO's.
You probably didn't follow the updates/news around this game/company back when it was hot and new.
@@ryuno2097 Holy shit the necroposting! It was covered on some of the biggest RUclips channels in Greece and it got its own spot at Gameathlon, a Greek gaming convention. Thing is, the building always looked like it was operated by a skeleton crew with a mostly empty parking lot. Basically Darkfall got white hot over here for a while and then fizzled out fast.
Me too
It's near golden hall
Nice video. For the history unholy wars delay (and entering a beta phase instead) came at midnight Greek time just some hours before the launch.
Solid stuff. Amusingly enough UO had an era of brokenly strong wizards or halberd in plate. While I don't like how UO solved those issues in the long run they at least recognized the problem. Darkfall had and has potential.
I remember following this game on the forums for years, joining the dwarf clan led by surly, and planned on being a dwarf mage. When beta started, the game was not what I expected. I still remember that community though, one of the most invested forums I was ever involved in for a game where the anticipation was more exciting than the result.
I was excited for Darkfall when it first came out and played it at launch, only for a week though.
The game was not pretty and it took a lot of work to get anything done. The world was practically empty, no mobs or anything to find.
The last time i logged on i spent a few hours running around the world exploring. There was nothing outside the starting area, no mobs, npc or anything, just ground and trees. I decided that i'd run to another starting area, just to see what it was like.
So i arrived at one of the other starting areas and found that it was under attack by a few players. I figured i'd try to help the starting players and engaged the attackers, i did not fare well and had to run. So i ran to the starting area to hide behind the walls near the tower (shoots ganking players), but when i got there, the low level players didn't much care that i was there to help. They just killed me and took my stuff, i spawned back in my own starting area, closed down the game and never looked back.
It's really amazing what Adventurine did with Darkfall esp considering all the competition at the time, their small group, and making for such a small dedicated niche of the online world. They achieved what studios 100x their size only talked about and failed completely at, and they did it with much smaller budget and kept it going for quite a long time.
@@thegreatape884It wasn't a failure at first, the game sold a shit ton of copies for an indie dev. AV's mismanagement is what caused it to fail.
@@thegreatape884and how much in 2005, 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10. The game was released in 2010…
One thing i had a problem with Darkfall... is it looks brown all the time. Grey and brown.... ho hum. Could have been a good game. Hey nerdSlayer... maybe something interesting to do is to do a return to some of these games that are still going. Thanks love your work.
Thanks for making this video. Brought back a lot of memories (good and bad).
I remember participating in one of the (or perhaps the) first sieges. A member of the BKB guild, we got sieged by the Goonsquad alliance, got rolled over pretty hard and lost our city (I can't remember it's name, but you could literally run around the walls by going over a hill adjacent to it). It had several platueues, one in the center, with an elevator that went up. Was a nice city if it wasn't so easy to get into. I remember sitting with hundreds of other players as legions of goons and goon alliance members rushed us. Also remember having the city Sunstone in the northwest during the beta. One of my best memories is me and my brothers stalking in the cliffs abovr a group that was farming. They didn't see us for some time, and killed them all after they got low and stealed the loot. We were new and didn't get much, but very fun and unique experience. Another time I remember was when our guild farmed these pirates to get a raft (which we got, and sailed back home with). I still have the screenshot of that somewhere after ten years and four different computers...
I haven't finished watching, but im halfway through and so far you didn't mention the 2008 economic crash. The move to Greece probably became a problem. Greece suffered the worst of any of the European countries during the crash, they still have not recovered from it to this day. Obviously that had nothing to do with all the problems prior to the crash, but they likely suffered internal problems after it, with funding, staffing, rent, payroll, etc. I remember them distinctly having to close down for some time due to riots that were happening outside their studio.
I did not play it for too long after we lost our city. We ended up joining the goons alliance, and I lost interest after seeing the writing on the wall. I and many others were seeing what we were warning about in the beta: without a skill cap, the people with absolutely no life would dominate. With macroing and the massive grind for every ability, I couldn't keep up cause I didn't want to macro. If the game had a skill cap, I have no doubt the game would've survived and done a lot better than it did. I didnt even know about bunny hopping in this video, and although I love movement mechanics like it in FPS games, it has no place in an MMO, especially one in which magic is already overpowered.
After quitting I still spent time in Forumfall pretty actively for some years. I wanna say up till 2011, but mostly in Off Topic (which was even more toxic than on topic). I also do remember arguing a lot with people about the lack of a cap. Then again, I was mostly arguing with the hardcore folks who didn't care if it didn't have a cap because they'd have advantages without it. I had college at the time and a full-time job now, as well as other hobbies. A skill cap makes it possible for people like me to play MMOs, gear and resource grinds were enough.
By the way, if anyone wants something like Darkfall, check out New World. Has similar concepts.
Great video! I really miss Darkfall. I never considered myself a PvP Player, I actually disliked most concepts of competitive multiplayer, and in games like WoW I shunned it as much as I could. I hated this concept of arbitrary resets and how PvP had zero impact on the game world, there was no lasting legacy for victory. Coupled with my love for skill-based RPGs like The Elder Scrolls I instantly got drawn to Darkfall and despite not being very competitive minded, I had an absolute blast. I loved how everything in the game had consequence, how if your clan took over a city or hamlet, it was yours until someone else took it from you. I also loved the whole idea of people banding together to create something.
I started out in run-of-the-mill clans, before joining one of the biggest clans on the NA Server at the time (Reincarnation) and still remember the day that clan alliance lost their entire island and got curbstomped (I'm not even mad bro). The grind was the biggest problem I had with the game, and I solved it (for myself at least) by focusing entirely on ships and becoming pirates. You didn't need stats or skills to use a cannon, you just aim and shoot. So I started one of the few exclusive pirate clans in Darkfall (Marque and Reprisal, later The Jolly Rogers) and while it was far from glorious, we still had a lot of fun sailing from chaos city to chaos city, farming mobs, wood, iron, and stone to build ships, capturing coastal village points, and testing our mettle against other seabound vessels (we sucked).
I was sad to see the game go, and while I briefly tried out Unholy Wars I found it very alienating, nothing seemed better, it just seemed different. I am excited by the prospect of New Dawn and Rise of Agon but at this time I really want to give each some time to breathe and hopefully kick off before investing myself into the game again. I truly hope Darkfall will live on, and at the very least, show other developers there's a potential market for games like this if you're willing to go full hardcore.
When the devs decided to split the server population in favor of 2 servers (1 na and 1 europe) the game started to decline and never was able to sustain itself. A huge world with little population in a world that was suppose to be about PVP and conquest doesnt really work with low population.
This game was hands down the most intense pvp experience i ever had regardless of bugs and cheats.
Same.
Great video nerdslayer that was a very good history that probably enlightened a lot of people of the game's past. Going through all these highs and lows myself as a player from NA launch till the early unholy wars beta I remember the heartache :).
Tell me... would you not agree with me that unholy wars was trying to make Darkfall for carebears? Would you not agree they could have an infiltrator from the main stream pushing hard to make the game go in this direction?
I really enjoy playing these videos in the background while I do work on my computer, thanks so much for making these, I will always be intrigued by MMOs
Very nice. Good to see you touch on how the community itself can play a part in the Death of a Game
I still miss the forum wars as much as the game itself lol, I was a “Bishop” of Kirdain (one of the “duchies” of Hyperion) and that was a very fun experience.
It’s a shame the game was so broken and limited at launch... I can’t speak for other guilds, but I saw that most of the guilds within Hyperion had enormous player drop off after a couple weeks when it became clear there wasn’t much to do and that territory ownership was more of a burden and hassle than anything.
It was fun while it lasted though.
Old Darkfall player here. I subbed and used your ref. And put nerdSlayer in the box where it asks how I found them. I loved all your death of a game videos so far and this one is especially cool since Darkfall managed to create such lasting memories for me.
Hopefully you can keep doing these for another 10 years so I can see your Death of a Game video about WoW.
yaok WoW is nowhere near dead didn't they have a expansion come out like a few months ago?
that's why I said TEN years from now.
Don't think WoW dies in 3 years time
YOU BROUGHT BACK SO MANY BITTERSWEET MEMORIES. I waited years for this to release to only be substantially upset with how the NA launch went. I remember I couldn't leave the city without getting ganked so I pretty much rage quit considering it was hard enough to get the armor and skills that I had.
Great video as always, game devs should watch it to prevent the same mistakes. You did a great job of researching all the things.
So nice to hear Asheron's Call getting a reference. Now you just need to bring up Shadowbane and Anarchy Online for all of my early MMO's to be represented ;).
Forumfall... Oh my, that was good part of my teens all the way up into early adulthood. It was a shitfest honestly, but it was our shitfest. The game? Wish it never happend.
Dude this must have taken ages to edit, it payed off man, great video!
I remember trying to free trial of the original game once. There were people right outside the starter area ganking noobs. There was literally no way a new player could have gotten into the game since other players were actively preventing you from doing anything.
Really digging the increased quality here, both the new mic and the editing are doing a damn fine job.
Hats off to your editor, it's nicely cut and portrayed without being too distracting.
Looking forward to new content!
I remember finding this MMO by chance years ago when I was looking for a new MMO to play as a WoW PvP player. I didn't know it had so much history, I also really like the graphics for some reason, they are different but cool and stylish, they also feel nostalgic, even tho I've never played the game. It's such a shame that such an unique game died because of so much missmanagement, even tho it's still alive thanks to the reboots it's probably not the same and it's not what it could have been if it were to be managed well from the very beggining. Great video.
Forumfall was the better game
That forum was my life
I spent the better part of a decade there. Good times.
See these type of series is what shines on this website and deserves way more views than it has
I loved Darkfall! Former member of eXile Corp, of the Coalition of the Chilling. Best moment in gaming was the CotC vs Hyperion Kingdom. Holy shit was that epic. After hyperion fell, the rise of The Mercs and Afghan that tore apart Coalition of the Chilling... so epic. For a time after the disintigration of CotC, we managed to buy a city on Rubayat (something like that), we spent about a 2 months there, building up forces, creating a new alliance and getting ready to invade the mainland again. But then summer holidays hit, all leadership went on vacation and the GL promoted someone he trusted... Only for his to sell all our cities to the enemy, kicking everyone from the guild before hand. As a result, everyone got scattered with only their own bank for things. Basically it made everyone quit or find a new guild. It was sad for it to end that way, but it was also a perfect end in a way to a awesome adventure that i will never forget. DarkFall as a game; 6/10 as an experience: 10/10.
You should do a video on Firefall. Super long development, the devs constantly changing their minds and entirely redoing systems repeatedly (there were 2 different crafting/progression systems during the time I spent in beta, and then they redid it again after the game launched).
I love how this video is a big improvement in the editing and presentation of the DOAG series
Nerdslayer, great moves, proud of you
Funny stuff, he doesn't do the editing...
Been with Darkfall Online from the beginning... until the bitter end. Your video really brings back some memories. Get Tasos'd.
Glad to see you've found a ton of my footage useful in your video. It was a pleasant surprise to see it!
Thank you!
I have been able to repress the name Tasos from my mind for years. You have re-opened this phase of my life, the name I hated so! Great video though keep it up duder
This was great! Never played Darkfall, but I've played Asheron's Call for years, have you considered doing a video on that? Tons of history there too!
I think that long term uncontrolled or unlimited PvP games are doomed to fail.
It can work, it just requires a completed game lol
The truth is it wasn’t the end of the world to lose gear and such in that game, but unlike their early promise that a skilled new player could compete with a veteran, their skill system (especially magic) left an insurmountable gulf between the two.
@@ValensBellator for real, i quit and came back around 3 times after losing hope from the character stats and skill gap. it took forever to level up skills and stats, also you had to glitch mobs and make afk macros to even compete.
Interesting video, I'd never heard of this game before. Thanks for the effort, I enjoy this series!
18:11 one of those small shapes on the hill is me.
Nobody will sub for new dawn or ROA, only a runescape model might work.
Discovered your channel only recently, but I love your content. I am still stuckon playing oldies, and your videos tickle my nostalgia. That said, I wanted to ask you if you would be willing to do a piece on Clive Barker's Undying. It is among the "best games nooone played", but it remains one of my favorite games of all time, and ONLY fps I can honestly say I love.
Okay man. You're killing it. This series is fantastic. I am so obsessed with the concept of the mmo. This is a perfect series for me. Can't wait until someone really nails it. I feel a true mmo breakthrough is coming. So many people passionately care about trying to find the perfect formula.
Keep the editor, man. It's cool to have a more visual timeline. Great video as usual!
holy shit 1 hour video almost. well was great watching it. keep up the good work
Good, deep vid. Your passion for the game shines through.
I'm following you since your Death of a Game: Star Wars Galaxies video. But I can't get it enough, literally. Can you please make videos and post them more frequently? I can't find this quailty on youtube.
Please don't stop making Death of a Game series.
Love your vids everyone is packed with info hope you make loads more.
Like the new logos, section headers and that death clock overlay.
Thank you, I like them as well.
You should look at mortal online.
It is a failed game that was mismanaged and the Devs could never deliver on what they promised their community, as a long time player I would like to see it done justice by this series.
I remember seeing a lot of Mortal Online a while ago and never getting around to playing it. Out of curiosity how did the devs mismanage it exactly?
It ain't dead yet, population seems to be pretty stable. And they just had the big modular house update.
population is pretty healthy for these kind of games.
Mortal Online GM's are liars and scumbags. That entire game i played from day 1 and the GM and dev team managed everything horribly and they did not have backups. Which means when people duped and shit went crazy there would be no way to rollback... the gms did stuff manually. Also the GM's gave players large amount of items and some people got treated very differently in game as per relations with the GM team. Also their website is not secure for credit card or personal information and players in the game were confirmed to have had access to GM accounts in game and on the website which gave the ability to spawn items and change almost anything. They banned players without reason and failed to ban hackers and dupers. The entire game was a shit show from day 1.
that sucks a lot, but it still ain't dead :)
Great analysis dude. Keep the videos coming and thanks for the amazing content.
I never heard of this game before. Keep up these amazing series man.
Developer membership within The Mercs, who prior to Darkfall were widely viewed as a bunch of washed up C- list pvpers, didn't help matters when The Mercs were all able to use skill gain exploits upon launch that were then patched out without a reversion leading to a massive skill gulf that led most serious PvP guilds to bail en masse. Virtually everyone else believed The Mercs were intentionally being favored to the point that exploits were intentionally left in and that they were even notified of the exploits by developers playing with the guild.
Remember acid pool parties?
25:45 the sign of a pathological liar, he didnt TECHNICALLY lie, because it wasnt called Darkfall 2: Unholy Wars. He could use the excuse of it being an "off-shoot" branch game. Lol ive seen that kinda excuse to lie so many times. F that.
Hey I know you mostly just do MMO's, but you should really check out WarZ (Zombie survival game) It had a terrible failing story and the guy running it was a real con artist and shithead. Enjoyed this epidsode. I stayed away from Darkfall after I heard too many bad things about it and the original graphics were too hard for me to look past, but sounds like you had a good bit of fun in the first one at least!
Hmmm...Warz was never big enough to follow suit of these vids. If it was it didn't make it but a few wks with any real popularity. Just a scam game which isn't exactly the types he is talking about here.
I played so many MMOs in my life and I’m sad to say I missed this one. Right up my alley of the games I loved to play. Can only imagine how fun the PvP was.
I have watched this video multiple times and i have been done some deeper research about Aventurin and where they moved afterwards and what happened behind the scene meanwhile the Darkfall game was running and going.I am from Greece and i have to say that the game did absolutely nothing to grab local players,when at the time of launching of Darkfall the second most popular game in Greece was WoW.Moreover on some of the many interviews Tasos did in Greek media he strongly emphasised on how he is trying to pull out a game with a base in Greece and in general how he is trying to prove that Greek people can enter the gaming industry if done right.Both from media and his statements it was clear that this game was more than a game a passion project done by a group of people wanting to prove themselves.As a passion project i started understanding his point of view when giving the statements you mention throughout the video,it wasn't just a job that wasn't succeeding but a further dream,a dream that had been put a lot of effort and personal dedication on.
The location of the base of Aventurin was a problem on its self,when going through their page and multiple forums i came across many threads stating that the team of Aventurin needed extra hands but because of the environment and nature of the team those who were looking for a place in the team had to get to Greece(this is still stated on their page TODAY,they are clearing out that anyone willing to work with the will have to get here in Greece to do so) and there was no much luck on finding professionals.There was also a thread asking for new programmers from Greek universities knowing game programming,but none was shown to know the demanded engines since Greece wasn't really experienced with games before.
Darkfall was a victim of its creators' high expectations,they wanted it to succeed but under the term to succeed as a Greek title and with a specified team image,which was impossible to ever work as such and denial brought the fall of the team,they simply overdone themselves for trying to accomplish something impossible.
I love your videos. Binging them while doing staff for my masters, while cooking, or just resting. Hopefully you cover Gunbound, i loved that game back in high school.
I was one of the bastards that prayed for the success of DFO since it was first mentioned. I was one of the AC Darktide and Shadowbane crews and it looked like it was going to be the game that brought it all together. Apparently I was such a forum fly through all of the wait I got to be a forum mod. Mainly "my beloved off topic" and the newbie forum. I am glad I stumbled over your channel! I will have to checked out the two offshoots you mentioned. TFK!
Two points.
1) You probably should have talked more about the Eurogamer review, and the subsequent re-review, as the developers and the forum went retarded over that initial review. It was a huge deal because finally the reality that the game was total garbage at release hit the devs. It was hilarious how they lost their shit when Eurogamer gave them a 2/10, then a 4/10.
2) To me, the final part of your review about the delusions the community has is the prime evidence why MMO's that are PVP-specific *are* doomed to fail. They attract tryhards and tryhards will make the game unplayable for casuals. Since the ratio of casuals to tryhards is 9/1, eventually your MMO will be left with a tenth of its original playerbase. That might work for a multiplayer shooter, but not for a genre whose whole premise is "look at all these other players in this giant world I can interact with."
Your last point is so true. I was one of the original beta signups and waited for the game for years! Then it came out and you couldn't even level basic skills in a newbie area or sell your junk without getting ganked and looted. I didn't start when the game launched, but probably 6-8mo after.
Exploring was impossible, you couldn't get far enough out of the city to actually learn the game or learn how to stay alive, because there was no way to slowly get used to it. I'm a big fan of PVP games, but Darkfall was just miserable.
I hear ya. You would have had to of been their at very beginning to play the full experience. It was amazing. After a few months all the people who macroed magic casting day and night became overly powered and thus the game died.
I've noticed that a lot of these PvP-focused MMOs end up either dead or in life support not long after their release. It seems impossible to make a game where you're encouraged to fight other players and take their stuff without the veteran playerbase eventually forming the dreaded elitist circlejerk that ruins the game for everyone and pretty much guarantees the game's inevitable demise.
I understand the reasoning behind wanting a game like this to remain "hardcore" and unforgiving, and being resistant to changes to make the game more accessible (or less "hardcore") and actively giving new and less dedicated players a hard time, but at the end of the day this is still an MMO we're talking about; a type of game that requires an active and healthy playerbase to remain relevant.
It's hard to maintain a game like this running when the community itself is contributing to its demise with their shitty attitudes.
Brad Maxwell cough cough eve
Good days, wish they lasted longer.
One word: Xpiher. Also, where's my goddam four-legged run? :P
Awesome video. Darkfall was my favorit mmo I've ever played I miss my old Wolfman Character Wolfgan :) Hopefully thees two new attempts will succeed.
To be honest I had never heard of this game at all. Great video man, keep up the awesome work.
PvP heavy mmo's always sit in a weird spot, where they either force the people that just want to pvp to slog through a huge pve grind fest, or they just open the floodgates and force the pve'ers to always watch their backs for fear some guy comes running out of the bushes sword in hand, which inevitably leads to the pve'ers leaving the game and the pvp'ers running out of targets to hunt. surely there is a way to balance the two or at the very least allow people a way out of the pvp asside from quitting the game.
I was following that game from late 2001 early 2002 all the way through the beta, launch, and reboot.
It was a fun game but never really came together.
Awesome video. Appreciate you using a ton of my UW videos.
The new editing definitely helps! One minor suggestion I have is for the lower resolution video for content that is more difficult to find HD recordings of, it may be a good idea to reduce the image size into more of a letterbox view/something with borders and see how that looks. In a window its not as noticeable but the low resolution portions clash with the other sharp image overlays and better quality rips when viewing in fullscreen. Its very possible this may be a problem unique to someone talking about content such as this due to the nature of available recordings being older at times.
Please keep making these videos, they are very interesting.
Sandbox games tend to fail. They're massive undertakings.
To this day I feel like the freedom afforded to players was astounding and there's been nothing else like it. Destructible environments, buildable bases, huge sieges with siege machines and ships? What other game has offered anything close to that? Probably just EVE online but that game's strength and weakness is the setting and gameplay. The space setting affords those capabilities while at the same time preventing a different type of action gameplay that people may want, which Darkfall did ultimately offer. A shame it never worked out, I only played this game for 2-3 months back in the day but it's still stuck to my mind as a highlight of my gaming experiences.
A very good video, and given the fact that it's a bit old, it kinda blows my mind that right now the game is available to be played.
Thanks for the video, brought back memories. Never had the opportunity to take advantage of what DF had to offer because I didn't have the drive to deeply commit, which is a requirement in these pretty hardcore games, but I can relate to the great feeling of every trip being an adventure where you were really at risk of losing something, it made the world feel organic and exciting.
When you are done with the mmo analyses do you intend to spend time on the kinds of "meta" paradigms that emerged and competed between each other within mmos? It's interesting that you seemed pretty invested in Darkfall, this school of sandbox mmo design is now pretty much dead and buried but I'd venture to say it reemerged through the "survival" genre (Dust etc) where there seems to be a revitalized appetite for open ended experiences (tho you could argue this started with minecraft and is now on a downwards slope also).
There's room for improvement on the structure of your videos I believe, the linear exploration of the timeline is fine but you might want to try having less of a compartmentalized approach for the analysis and tailor it to the most salient elements you want to address with any specific game, IMO!
Despite it's shortcomings, Darkfall was one of the most unique and enjoyable experiences I've had with online gaming. I didn't even get very far, but the memories of what I did do still stand out.
Darkfall dead?? lol it will be back they will resell the same broken game a 5th time guaranteed. the next game has to be everrquest next before all the information about how SOE ripped everyone off dissapears from the internet
Everquest next was never more than an engine. They didn't know how to make a game out of it. Everything that shows gameplay are scripted content. The developers totally failed here, giving us empty promises.
Lets see how Pantheon rise of the fallen turns out, since it's made by many of the same key people.
The best part about Darkfall was the forums before release. I never planned on actually playing the game, but was active on the forums a lot.
Great video as always! I played Darkfall for a bit, but as soon as I found out how grindy and macro reliant it was I had better things to do :D
Shadowbane was one mmo like this, now also dead.
Very nice video and true to how many of us have percived the history of Darkfall. I did find darkfall in 2009 and start playing just after the blood wall was removed. Up until shutdown i spent avery weekend in Agon... and i miss it so much. just like most others i did not find Unholy Wars to live up to thefeeling in Darkfall. Must say it was a thrilling and awesum experience to log in to Rise Of Agon at launch. :)
Sorry to say it i have not played much Rise of Agon after launch due to lack of time.
DF:New Dawn is dead? Website seems to be offline...
Rise of Agon might still be alive
Seems to be dead, even google search doesn't find their site. Rise of Agon is still going
You're easily the best MMORPG content creator. Most of the popular ones shrug off games like this and say they were doomed to fail because of the concept, it's so refreshing to hear from someone who understands the fun in a risky sandbox environment and how they're some of the most unique experiences ever. Also you REALLY covered everything, I was afraid you wouldn't mention magefall, as it was the reason I quit. Not being able to play as a melee character without having to first learn a multitude of spells I had no interest in was really frustrating, when I played all the good players had the exact same loadouts and classes and it made the game feel like a poor mans Quake in the later days rather then a battle going on in a fantasy world. Glad I subbed to you.
Holy crap... I had never heard of Darkfall Online, but when you mentioned the time when Eurogamer gave a terrible score to DFO after only playing the game for two hours, I remembered reading about that!
I remember when it came out, the community for this game was hype. I didn't even know it shut down..or I forgot.
I loved this game... After battling as a noob verses the rainbow ninjas, to our clan duping gold and grinding to be as powerful. Then to only join the remnants with the beginning of the EU transfer to NA. The power gap was massive and we steamrolled almost every clan... Was such a fun game to play.
I was there at the very beginning before the game was released. We were speculating about the game features, hoping and suggesting some good game mechanics. We ended up getting an empty, grind heavy sandbox with Quake combat. Meh. Also spin to win combat. It was hilarious how broken this part of the game was.
do you remember samdogs hilarious fictional posts about getting to play the closed beta, and all the really awesome features he talked about which had nothing to do with the darkfall that released?
Super happy for this! do autoassault next :D
I was a young guy when I first heard of this game and as a mud pvper I was so looking forward to it. Whelp I'm almost 50 now and my best pvp mmo experience was still on a mud.
Darkfall Rise of Agon is absolutely amazing, so glad they brought back the magic :)
Well said NerdSlayer. I was there in 2009 and imo people afk boting magic ruined the game. It made having to aim with the bow pointless because with high level magic you could simply aim at the ground near their feet to do full damage. That's what ruined the game for me and I quit after 6 months. I never macroed and never will. That said, I hope that darkfall is a success.